JNGERSOLL,  BEECHER 

AND 

DOGMA, 

OR 

A  FEW  SIMPLE  TRUTHS 

AND   THEIR   LOGICAL   DEDUCTIONS, 


IN    WHICH    THE    POSITIONS    OF 


MR.  INGERSOLL  AND  MR.  BEECHER 


ARE   CONSIDERED    IN    TWO   LECTURES, 


ENTITLED 


MEPHISTO-MINOTAURUS 

AND 

THE   ABSOLUTE    NECESSITIES. 

r.v 

R:  S.  DEMENT. 


CHICAGO: 
S.  C.   GRIGGS    AND    COMPANY. 

1878. 


COPYRIGHT,  1878, 
BY  S.  C.  GRIGGS  AND  COMPANY. 


AUTHOR'S  PREFATORY  REMARKS. 


THE  wonders  of  the  kaleidoscope  are  but  the  reflec- 
tions of  numerous  pieces  of  colored  glass,  rough,  without 
symmetry,  unsightly  in  themselves,  having  no  connection 
with  each  other,  and  but  very  trifling  value.  If  we  take 
these  little  pieces  out  of  the  case  that  is  artfully  arranged 
for  them,  and  examine  them,  each  upon  its  own  individu- 
al merits,  or  collectively  as  a  whole,  we  shall  be  surprised 
that  any  art  could  have  succeeded  in  causing  us  to  think 
them  of  beauty  or  of  value.  The  author  well  remem- 
bers the  feeling  when,  a  child,  he  solved  the  mystery  of 
his  first  kaleidoscope.  He  felt  that  he  had  been  imposed 
upon — deceived  into  believing  that  what  he  saw  was  at 
least  the  shadow  of  something  real  and  beautiful,  when  in 
truth  it  was  only  a  delusion  ;  and  he  has  been  skeptical  of 
appearances  ever  since.  And  so,  when  Mr.  Ingersoll  put 
his  bits  of  painted  words,  bits  of  highly-colored  thoughts, 
and  bits  of  Infidel  philosophy,  and  a  great  variety  of 
nondescript  bits  and  broken  fragments  of  all  kinds,  into 
his  kaleidoscopic  lecture  of  "  The  Gods,"  and  placed  it 
on  sale  in  almost  all  the  shops  of  the  land,  the  author  se- 
cured a  copy,  and  true  to  his  early  lesson,  set  about  solv- 
ing its  mysteries.  In  the  lecture,  "  Mephisto-Minotaurus," 
will  be  found  the  result  of  his  investigation. 

What  Mr.  Ingersoll  has  put  together  in  the  work  referred 
to  is,  no  doubt,  to  many  minds,  of  very  questionable  value, 
unless  some  of  it  be  classed  with  the  antiquities,  and  with 


4  AUTHOR'S  PREFATORY  REMARKS. 

this  part  the  market  is  already  glutted  ;  but  when  he  puts  it 
between  the  polished  glasses  of  his  wit,  his  satire  and  his 
eloquence,  and  whirls  it  round  with  magic  swiftness,  there 
is  to  one's  eyes,  bewildered  by  his  art,  a  wonderful  and 
entrancing  vision. 

In  reviewing  Mr.  Beecher's  philosophy,  the  author  has 
not  confined  himself  so  exclusively  to  the  text.  He  has 
sought  rather  to  consider  what  appeared  to  him  the  irrec- 
oncilable dogmas  of  many  of  our  religious  -societies,  and 
in  the  treatment  of  this  subject  he  has  sought  to  be  gov- 
erned solely  by  the  merits  of  the  ideas  themselves,  without 
attaching  any  importance  to  the  sources  from  which  they 
may  have  emanated.  In  the  lecture  entitled  "The  Abso- 
lute Necessities,"  will  be  found  the  offering  he  brings  to 
the  altar  of  thought,  trusting  that  at  least  some  incense 
will  arise  from  it  to  join  the  "  pillar  of  cloud  by  day  and 
the  pillar  of  fire  by  night,"  which  shall  lead  us  on  in 
the  march  of  soul  to  the  Infinite. 

The  author  expressly  desires  to  be  understood  that  in 
the  title  of  his  work  he  intends  no  disrespect  to  either  of 
the  illustrious  names  with  which  he  adorns  it,  and  trusts 
that  neither  Mr.  Ingersoll  nor  Mr.  Beecher  will  feel  com- 
promised by  being  associated  together. 

R.   S.   DEMENT. 
CHICAGO,  March,  1878. 


MEPHISTO-MINOTAURUS. 


The  conflict  of  faith  and  unbelief  remains  the  proper,  the 
only,  the  deepest  theme  of  the  history  of  the  world  and  man- 
kind, to  which  all  others  are  subordinate. 

GOETHE. 

With  the  vulgar  and  the  learned,  Names  have  great  weight; 
the  wise  use  a  writ  of  inquiry  into  their  legitimacy  v/hen  they 

are  advanced  as  authorities. 

ZIMMERMAN. 

For  'tis  the  sport  to  have  the  engineer 

Hoist  with  his  own  petar. 

SHAKSPEARE. 


MEPHISTO-MINOTAURUS.* 


EVERY  age  has  produced  remarkable  men. 
Occasional  ages  have  shown  us  men  who  were 
truly  great.  It  has  seldom  been  the  case,  how- 
ever, that  a  man  was  correctly  measured  by 
the  age  in  which  he  lived.  Indeed,  it  has  not 
always  been  the  case  that  men  have  been 
rightly  judged  by  subsequent  ages.  And  how 
seldom  have  been  the  instances  where  the 
career  of  a  man  has  been  foretold  to  any  de- 
gree of  accuracy  !  And  how  very  seldom  that 
a  master  has  succeeded  to  that  prophetic  art 
which  has  produced  an  accurate  portrait  of  a 
man  who  was  yet  to  be  born  !  Indeed  I  know 
of  but  one  such  instance.  It  stands  out  in  re- 

*  It  is  not  intended  to  reflect  upon  Mr.  Ingersoll  personally  in 
anything  that  is  offered  in  these  pages.  It  is  only  so  far  as  he  is 
identified  with  his  theories,  by  his  manner  of  putting  them,  that 
\ve  allude  to  him,  here,  as  a  sort  of  personation  of  his  philosophy. 


8  MEPHIS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

lief,  solitary  and  alone.  I  desire  to  speak  of 
it.  It  is,  really,  quite  remarkable. 

The  portrait  to  which  I  refer  may  be  found 
in  an  essay,  written  half  a  century  ago,  by  an 
eminent  and  distinguished  author.  I  will  show 
it  you,  only  reserving  the  name  of  the  hero. 
The  likeness  will  at  once  be  recognized.  Here 
it  is : 

"  Our  hero  is  a  cultivated  personage,  and 
acquainted  with  the  modern  sciences  ;  sneers 
at  witchcraft  and  the  black  art,  even  while  em- 
ploying them  as  heartily  as  any  member  of  the 
French  Institute;  for  he  is  a  philosopke,  and 
doubts  most  things,  nay,  half  disbelieves  even 
his  own  existence. 

"  It  is  not  without  cunning  effort  that  all  this 
is  managed ;  but  managed  in  a  considerable 
degree,  it  is  ;  for  a  world  is  opened  to  us  which, 
we  might  almost  say,  we  feel  to  be  at  once  true 
and  not  true.  .  .  .  Doubtless  our  hero  has 
the  manners  of  a  gentleman  ;  he  knows  the 
world  ;  nothing  can  exceed  the  easy  tact  with 
which  he  manages  himself;  his  wit  and  sar- 
casm are  unlimited ;  the  cool,  heartfelt  con- 


OARLTLE^S  ESS  AT.  9 

tempt  with  which  he  despises  all  things,  human 
and  divine,  might  make  the  fortune  of  half  a 
dozen  fellows  about  town.  .  .  .  He  is  some- 
times called  the  Denier,  and  this  truly  is  his 
name  ;  for  as  Voltaire  did  with  historical  doubt, 
so  does  he  with  all  moral  appearances — settles 
them  with  a  N'en  croyez  rien. 

"  The  shrewd,  all-informed  intellect  he  has, 
is  an  attorney  intellect ;  it  can  contradict  but 
it  cannot  affirm.  With  lynx  vision  he  descries 
at  a  glance  the  ridiculous,  the  unsuitable,  the 
bad  ;  but  for  the  solemn,  the  noble,  the  worthy, 
he  is  blind. 

"Thus  does  he  go  along,  qualifying,  confut- 
ing, despising;  on  all  hands  detecting  the  false, 
but  without  force  to  bring  forth,  or  even  to 
discern,  any  glimpse  of  the  true. 

"  Poor  fellow  ;  what  truth  should  there  be 
for  him  ?  To  see  falsehood  is  his  only  truth ; 
falsehood  and  evil  are  the  rule ;  truth  and 
good,  the  exception  which  confirms  it.  He 
can  believe  in  nothing  but  his  own  self-conceit 
and  in  the  indestructible  baseness,  folly,  and 
hypocrisy  of  men.  ...  At  humanity  he 


I  o  MEPHIS  TO-MIXO  TA  UR  US. 

has  no  grudge  ;  he  merely  operates  by  way  of 
experiment,  to  pass  the  time  scientifically. 

"  Such  a  combination  of  logical  Life  and 
moral  Death,  so  universal  a  Denier,  both  in 
heart  and  head,  is  undoubtedly  a  child  of  Dark- 
ness, an  emissary  of  the  Primeval  Nothing ; 
and  coming  forward,  as  he  does,  like  a  person 
of  breeding,  and  without  any  flavor  of  brim- 
stone, may  stand  here,  in  his  merely  spiritual 
deformity,  at  once  potent,  dangerous  and  con- 
temptible." 

This  is  an  extract  from  an  essay  by  Thomas 
Carlyle,  contributed  to  the  Foreign  Review,  in 
1828.  It  had,  at  the  time,  a  world-wide  fame 
as  a  pen-portrait  of  Mephistopheles.  Indeed, 
Mr.  Carlyle  humored  this  interpretation  him- 
self; it  served  as  a  mask  for  his  hero.  A  mad 
rogue  for  a  jest  was  Carlyle  in  those  days,  and 
how  cleverly  did  he  play  this  one  on  his  critics 
and  reviewers ;  and  how  capitally  did  he  con- 
ceal his  desisfn  !  How  he  must  have  chuckled 

o 

and  laughed  to  himself  as  he  realized  that  in 
less  than  half  a  century  the  true  hero  of  his 
portraiture  should  be  recognized  !  When  his 


7Ar  BRACKETS.  I  I 

"picture  of  Mephistopheles "  should  be  re- 
garded in  its  true  light  as  a  prophetic  vision 
of  Ingersollism. 

This  much  as  an  introduction,  merely,  to  the 
first  half  of  our  heading  —  the  Mephisto. 

A  word  or  two  only  will  be  necessary  as  an 
introduction  to  the  second  part — the  Mino- 
taurus.  It  will  be  found  eminently  fitting 
when  brought  in  direct  application  to  the 
hero  of  this  paper. 

Now,  the  Minotaur  of  the  Grecians  was  the 
result  of  a  liaison,  the  -history  of  which  is  fa- 
miliar to  readers.  Our  Ingersoll  is  the  result 
of  a  liaison  between  what  he  is,  himself,  pleased 
to  name,  respectively,  "  Reason  "  and  "  Philos- 
ophy." 

[It  may  be  as  well,  right  here,  to  borrow  a 
brace  of  Dr.  Holmes'  brackets,  and  drop  in  an 
item  in  reference  to  a  peculiarity  of  our  hero 
as  contradistinguished  from  his  fellow  Ameri- 
cans, and  from  those  with  whom  he  has  sought 
fellowship,  his  cousins-german. 

The  distinction  is  a  marked  one,  for  while 
with  the  former,  titles  such  as  "  Hon."  etc., 


I  2  MEPHfS  TO-MINO  T.  \  I '/,'  C  .V. 

and  with  the  latter,  those  of  "  Von,"  etc.,  are 
seldom  if  ever  omitted,  our  Ingersoll,  invari- 
ably, when  mentioning  the  names  of  his  illus- 
trious parentage  referred  to  (Reason  and  Phi- 
losophy), omits  a  prefix  which  belongs  to  both 
alike,  and  applies  directly  to  both  with  as  pos- 
itive significance.  I  refer  to  the  little  Greek 
word  Pseudo. 

Since  Mr.  Ingersoll  has  omitted  to  mention 
so  important  an  ear-mark  of  his  progenitors, 
and  in  order  that  we  may  not  become  confused 
in  tracing  the  descent  of  species,  it  will,  per- 
haps, be  well  to  take  a  cue  from  Mr.  Darwin, 
and  compound  a  word  to  suit  the  emergency  ; 
and  since  our  hero  presumes  to  the  ermine 
of  his  class,  what  more  appropriate  title  than 
His  Pseudolency  ?  This  will  avoid  the  neces- 
sity of  frequent  references  to  his  great  origi- 
nals, False  Reason  and  False  Philosophy.] 

With  this  understanding  we  will  proceed. 
Now,  the  analogy  before  us  becomes  all  the 
more  striking  when  we  realize  that  the  result 
of  the  liaison  in  the  one  instance  was  the  pro- 
duction of  as  great  a  monstrosity  as  in  the 


THE  MINOTAUR.  13 

other,  for  His  Pseudolency  is,  surely,  as  Mino- 
taurian  a  specimen  of  humanity  as  our  ancient 
Grecian  brethren,  with  all  the  wealth  of  their 
fertile  imaginations,  could  have  possibly  con- 
ceived of.  Unlike  the  iconoclasts  of  a  more 
refined  order,  he  disdains  the  hammer  of  argu- 
ment, but  plunges  in  among  the  idols  of 
antiquity,  and,  with  a  bellowing  and  roaring 
that  all  but  shakes  the  foundations  of  Olym- 
'pus,  more  than  an  ocean's  breadth  away,  gores 
and  smashes  things  indiscriminately. 

In  more  direct  reference  to  our  analogue 
we  will  now  proceed  to  consider  his  works, 
with  a  touch  at  the  life  and  character  of  our 
hero,  wherein  the  further  aptitude  of  our 
nomen  omen  will,  no  doubt,  appear. 

Of  course  Mr.  Ingersoll,  the  citizen,  and 
Mr.  Ingersoll,  the  philosopher,  are  two  very 
different  persons.  We  make  no  allusion  to 
citizen  Ingersoll.  He  may  be  a  very  esti- 
mable friend  and  gentleman  for  aught  I 
know.  It  is  with  Mr.  Ingersoll,  the  Pseudo- 
philosopher,  that  we  have  to  do. 

We  will  open  his  book. 


1 4  ME  I' II  IS  7V  )-M/NO  TA  UR  US. 

"THE    GODS 

"AND    o  T  11  E  R    L  E  c  T  u  R  E  s  , 

"  BY 

"  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL. 

"Give  me  the  storm  and  tempest  of  thought 

"  and  action,  rather   than   the  dead   calm 

"  of  ignorance  and  faith.     Banish  me 

"  from  Eden  when  you  will  ;  but 

"  first    let    me    eat   of    the 

"  tree     of     Knowledge. 

"  PEORIA,   ILLINOIS  : 

"  1874-" 

Let  us  begin  with  the  very  title-page.  To 
the  first  of  the  two  sentences  with  which  this 
page  is  ornamented,  I  have  simply  to  say : 
Bravo  !  Give  me  the  storm  and  tempest  of 
thought  and  action,  rather  than  the  dead 
calm  of  ignorance  and  faith. 

But  in  passing  to  the  second,  one  is  convulsed 
with  laughter!  The  idea  of  His  Pseudolency, 
Mephisto-Minotaurus,  running  about  loose  in 
Eden,  refusing  to  be  put  out  until  he  shall 
first  be  permitted  to  breakfast  from  the  tree 


MEPHISTO  IN  EDEN.  15 

of  Knowledge,  is  too  much  for  one's  midriff. 
The  figure  employed  would  not  be  quite  so 
bad  were  it  not  for  His  Pseudolency's  dual 
character.  Now,  were  he  simply  Mephisto,  he 
might  set  up  a  sort  of  claim  to  a  temporary 
lien  on  the  aforesaid  garden,  by  virtue  of  a 
former  title  of  occupancy  vested  in  an  early 
and- somewhat  illustrious  member  of  the  Me- 
phistophelian  family.  But  it  is  highly  prob- 
able that  his  Snakeship  has  already  taken  the 
double  nature  of  his  immediate  heir  into  ac- 
count and  made  other  provision  for  him — pos- 
sibly, somewhere  near  Tartarus,  down  below 
Avernus,  and  so  even  the  shadow  of  title  re- 
ferred to  fades  from  our  vision.  But  to  think 
of  his  roaring  and  bellowing  and  pawing 
through  that  beautiful  garden,  throwing  up  a 
great  cloud  of  dust  to  blind  us  from  his  true 
purpose,  is  altogether  too  funny  to  be  endur- 
able. 

Turning  a  leaf,  we  find  the  "  preface,"  which 
we  discover  to  be  an  illustrated  one ;  and  per- 
haps there  never  was  a  preface  that  so  com- 
pletely represented  what  was  to  follow  it  as 


I  6  MEPHISTO-MINOTA  r/,V.V. 

this.  It  is  at  the  same  time  a  sort  of  frontis- 
piece, representing  at  the  top  of  the  page  three 
crosses,  on  two  of  which  are  suspended  human 
forms  as  in  crucifixion,  and  at  the  foot  of  the 
third  cross,  which  stands  between  the  other 
two,  are  a  number  of  women  and  children  being 
burned  as  heretics.  Beneath  this  remarkable 
conception  are  the  words  : 

"  FOR  THE  LOVE  OF  GOD." 
At  the  bottom  of  the  page  there  is  a  repre- 
sentation of  three  telegraph  poles,  resembling 
somewhat  the  three  crosses,  with  wires 
stretched  from  each  to  each,  and  at  the 
bottom  of  this  picture  are  the  words : 

"  FOR  THE  USE  OF  MAN." 
Now,  in  justice    to    His    Pseudolency,  the 
author  of    this    remarkable    cartoon  (I    take 
for  granted  that  the  author  of  the  book  is  the 
author   of    its    preface    in    this    instance),    it 
should  be  stated  that  he  is  not  really  so  stupid, 
-  for  he  is  a  man  of  rare  genius  and  acknowl- 
edged ability  —  as  to  put  an  estimate  upon  it 
above  the  most  transparent  and  inconceivably 
ridiculous  clap-trap.     He   appreciates  that    it 


A  REMARKABLE  "PREFACED  \"J 

is  no  more  than  this,  quite  as  well  as  you  or  I. 
We  must  not  lose  sight  of  what  Mr.  Carlyle 
said  of  ..him  before  he  was  born,  in  the  essay 
we  have  quoted:  "  At  humanity  he  has  no 
grudge ;  he  merely  operates  by  way  of  experi- 
ment, to  pass  the  time  scientifically." 

No  doubt,  were  he  to  express  himself 
frankly  in  regard  to  this  cartoon,  he  would 
admit,  for  he  is  very  candid  at  times,  that 
cartoons,  as  a  rule,  are  low,  very  low,  in  fact. 
That  should  such  a  master  as  Nast  under- 
take a  job  upon  him  and  the  disciples  of 
"  Reason  "  he  could  cartoon  them  beyond  all 
endurance. 

Take  the  history  of  Infidelity  in  France, 
for  instance,  where  they  ran  so  wild  after 
"  Reason  "  and  "  Liberty  "  that  they  positively 
paraded  a  common  courtesan  at  the  head  of 
one  of  their  grandest  processions,  and  hailed 
her  as  the  "  Goddess  of  Reason." 

Or  right  here  in  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica, where  thousands  pin  their  souls  to  Mr. 
Ingersoll's  coat-tails, — just  imagine  a  whole 
herd  of  souls  tied  on  as  Nast  could  tie  them 


I  8  MEPHIS  TO-M/XO  TA  UP  US. 

as  a  sort  of  caudal  appendage  to  His  Pseu- 
dolency,  Mephisto-Minotaurus  ! 

And  Mr.  Ingersoll  appreciates  a»  well  as 
anybody  else  that  the  only  possible  point  in 
the  picture,  that  might  otherwise  indirectly 
seem  to  favor  his  side  of  the  question,  is  lost 
in  the  fact  that  the  telegraph  is  pre-eminently 
a  Christian  institution,  and  is  indebted  to 
Christianity  and  to  Christian  enlightenment 
for  every  stage  of  its  continually  advancing 
improvement. 

He  ought  to  be  capable  of  appreciating 
another  fact :  that  neither  the  genius  nor  the 
spirit  of  Christianity  is  responsible  for  the 
crimes  that  have  been  perpetrated  under  the 
banner  of  the  Cross. 

Still  less  is  it  an  argument  against  Chris- 
tianity that  wicked  men  have  stolen  her  liv- 
ery to  cloak  their  infamy,  or  that  misguided 
zealots,  in  her  name,  have  done  such  deeds  as 
have  all  earth  and  heaven  turned  thought-sick 
and  all  hell  amazed. 

Why  did  not  Mr.  Ingersoll  append  to  his 
picture  the  representation  of  a  steamboat, 


THE  PL  UMBD  KNIGHT.  \  g 

railroad,  telescope,  spectroscope,  telephone, 
church,  college,  or  indeed  any  of  the  advance 
couriers  of  Christian  enlightenment,  and  claim 
them  for  Infidelity,  as  well  as  the  telegraph? 
O,  plumed  knight  of  the  brazen  cheek  !  verily 
thou  hast  almost  compromised  thyself  right 
in  the  beginning  ! 

We  come  now  to  the  first  of  the  remarkable 
lectures  of  this  remarkable  book. 

THE  GODS. 

"  An  honest  God  is  the  noblest  work  of  man'.' 
By  the  little  line  in  italics,  "An  honest  God 
is  the  noblest  work  of  man"  it  is  presumed 
that  His  Pseudolency  simply  intended  a  little 
witticism,  or  pun,  as  it  were  —  merely  ex- 
perimenting, you  know — for  the  intensity  of 
thought,  the  tension  of  nerve  and  brain,  the 
heavy  labor,  so  to  speak,  of  His  Pseudo- 
lency, that  is  evident  throughout  the  lecture 
that  follows  to  prove  that  the  most  damnable 
and  ridiculous  of  all  work  that  humanity  can 
engage  in  is  that  of  making  gods,  precludes 
the  possibility  that  he  could  have  attached 
any  meaning  to  the  little  line  in  italics. 


2O  MEPHISTO-M1XOTAURUS. 

Following  this  is  the  lecture  proper  —  and 
of  all  the  anomalies  of  English  literature  it 
is  surely  the  most  remarkable  !  Walt  Whit- 
man's "  Leaves  of  Grass  "  is  nowhere  in  com- 
parison. 

Where  to  commence  or  how  to  commence 
a  review  is  puzzling.  If  there  were  any  de- 
fined line  of  argument  —  any  firstlys,  second- 
lys  and  thirdlys,  the  mile-posts  of  the  old 
school  —  any  landmarks,  so  to  speak,  of  any 
kind — but  so  far  from  there  being  any  defined 
line  of  argument,  there  is  no  argument  at  all. 
His  Pseudolency  has  no  argument  to  make  ; 
he  is  simply  a  Denier,  without  argument ;  this 
is  the  Mephisto  part  of  him. 

His  pace  cannot  be  measured,  for  he  has 
neither  regular  gait,  nor  does  he  move  in  any 
prescribed  direction — he  simply  plunges,  now 
forward,  now  backward,  now  to  either  side  — 
pawing  and  bellowing  and  raising  a  wonderful 
dust  all  the  while  ;  this  is  the  Minotaur  part  of 
him. 

The  only  practical  way  that  I  can  discern 
is  to  follow  wherever  there  is  a  dust. 


A   WONDERFUL  DUST.  21 

Mr.  Ingersoll  opens  his  lecture  by  stating 
that  "  Each  nation  has  created  a  God." 

This,  I  take  it,  was  intended  as  a  sort  of 
poetic  expression  intended  to  convey  the  idea 
that  all  nations  have  had  some  sort  of  natural, 
instinctive  or  intuitional  conception  of  an  au- 
thority or  power  beyond  their  own  —  an  over- 
ruling Deity.  It  either  means  this  or  it  means 
nothing,  and  in  the  light  of  this  interpretation 
I  most  heartily  indorse  it. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  might,  however,  have  been 
less  obscure  and  more  forcible  by  carrying  the 
thought  into  all  the  existencies  of  the  universe. 

He  could  have  begun  with  the  vegetable 
world  wherein  he  would  have  found  : 

First,  Everything  dependent  upon  a  su- 
perior power. 

Second,  All  things  acting  as  if,  seemingly, 
conscioiis  of  that  superior  power. 

He  would  have  found  the  First  evinced  in 
every  state  of  development.  He  would  have 
found  the  Second  evinced  in  the  progress  of 
that  development. 

To  be  plainer:  Had  he  gone  to  the  ivy  that 


2  2  MEPIIIS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

decks  the  tree  in  the  forest,  he  had  found 
its  delicate  tendrils  reaching  out  for  help  and 
support  to  the  bark  and  the  twigs  of  its  pow- 
erful friend ;  had  he  tried  to  unclasp  its  tiny 
arms,  he  had  found  them  clinging  to  their 
stately  protector  with  the  tenacity  of  life  itself. 
Then  had  he  stooped  to  the  fern  or  the  flower 
at  his  feet,  he  had  found  them  as  seemingly 
conscious  of  their  dependence  upon  the  Earth, 
and  resisting  with  all  their  puny  strength  his 
efforts  to  tear  them  from  her  bosom.  Then, 
could  he  have  listened  to  the  voices  of  these, 
the  soft  wave  of  sound  that  attends  the  unfold- 
ing of  the  tiniest  germ,  he  had  heard  a  sweet 
song,  as  of  thankfulness,  a  song  that  rises  up 
from  each  infinitesimal  stage  of  life,  in  the  pro 
gress  of  its  development.  And  he  had  found 
all  these,  the  stately  oak,  the  tendriled  ivy, 
the  delicate  fern,  and  the  fragrant  flower,  all 
reaching  their  arms  to  the  sun — the  Divinity 
of  matter. 

Then   had    he   pfone    to  the  orders  of  ani- 

o 

mal  life,   he  had  found  the  same  fact  of  de- 
pendence.     He  had  found  every  living  thing, 


A   THOUGHT  FROM  NATURE.  23 

from  the  dawn  of  its  being  on  to  the  end  of  its 
latest  breath,  imbued  with  the  instinct  or  in- 
tuition of  a  Superior  Power  —  a  power  beyond 
itself.  The  young  that  looks  to  the  mother, 
the  mother  that  looks  to  the  sire,  the  sire  that 
looks  to  its  nobler  brother  in  the  species  above 
it,  and  this  brother  to  one  still  above  it,  on 
till  the  highest  and  noblest  of  animals  that 
stands  in  awe  of  the  child  ;  and  the  child  looks 
up  to  the  humblest  man,  and  this  man  to  the 
man  who  is  great,  and  he  to  the  Divinity  of 
men. 

And  then,  had  he  lifted  his  face  to  the 
stars,  he  might  have  learned  that  those  innu- 
merable systems  of  worlds  revolve  round  their 
central  suns,  and  that  all  these  are  dependent 
on  law.  And  in  these  he  would  have  found  a 
design,  and  the  design  dependent  upon  a  de- 
signer, and  that  that  designer  was  the  Divinity 
of  worlds. 

And  then,  had  he  opened  the  book  of 
thought,  he  could  have  found  a  volume  of 
Unities,  and  this  would  have  taught  him  that 
the  divinity  of  matter,  and  the  divinity  of 


2  4  MKPH/S  TO-MINO  r^  UR  i  .s . 

men,  and  the  divinity  of  worlds,  were  one  — 
the  trinity  of  perfection  ;  He  whom  the  Chris- 
tians call  God. 

And  then  he  would,  no  doubt,  have  made 
his  opening  sentence  more  accurately  saying-; 
"  Each  nation  has  created  an  image  of  God." 
And  then,  instead  of  his  second  sentence  read- 
ing as  it  does :  "And  the  god  has  always  re- 
sembled his  creators,"  he  would  have  made  it 
read  as  follows  :  "  And  that  image  of  God  has 
conformed  to  the  conceptions  of  its  creators." 
I  say  he  would  have  done  this  ;  of  course  this 
is  upon  the  hypothesis  that  he  is  an  honest 
man  ;  I  accord  to  all  men  honesty. 

Had  he  then  have  permitted  a  commendable 
zeal  for  the  truth,  he  would  have  added  :  "  This 
fact  of  dependence  which  we  find  throughout 
the  material  world,  and  this  instinct  of  a  su- 
perior power  which  we  find  throughout  all 
orders  of  animals,  and  this  intuition  of  a  God 
which  we  find  throughout  all  conditions  of  hu- 
manity and  all  the  ages  of  the  world, —  these 
three  absolute  truths  are  a  very  conclusive 
argument  that  there  is  One  on  whom  all  things 

o  o 


FACT,  INSTINCT,  INTUITION.  25 

depend,  a  power  beyond  all  animal  life,  a  God 
who  touches  every  soul  through  this  intuitional 
link  of  Himself." 

After  the  two  sentences  we  have  o-iven,  the 

o 

first  twelve  pages  appear  to  be  devoted  to  an 
irregular  dissertation  on  the  gods  of  history. 
It  is  here  that  the  Minotaur  part  takes  entire 
control.  He  roars  and  bellows,  and  charges 
in  among  the  idols  of  the  past  with  all  the 
fury  of  the  most  illustrious  sires  of  his  species. 
And  yet  he  is  altogether  harmless,  in  these 
paroxysms,  save  to  himself.  The  objects  of 
his  rage  being  simply  myths,  he  charges 
through  these  in  a  cloud  of  dust  —  to  his  own 
exhaustion.  Meeting  no  opposition  save  here 
and  there  from  the  rocks  of  truth  that  lie  in 
his  way,  over  these  he  but  stumbles  and  falls 
to  rise  again  in  redoubled  fury,  foaming  and 
roaring  and  lashing  his  sides  for  another  at- 
tack. And  so  he  returns  again  and  again  to 
his  fight  with  the  gods.  He  is  safer,  it  would 
appear,  from  personal  harm  than  was  poor  old 
Don  Quixote,  in  his  attack  upon  the  wind- 
mills ;  and  yet  it  may  be  but  for  a  time,  for, 


2  6  MEPHIS  TO-M/XO  TA  I  -If  US. 

we  are  told,  "though  the  mills  of  the  gods 
grind  slowly,  yet  they  grind  exceeding  small," 
and  if  they  do  nothing  else,  they  may  still 
keep  their  spectral  shadows  dancing  before 
His  Pseudolency  on  the  heights  of  Olympus 
till  he  shall  butt  his  brains  out  at  its  base. 

But  in  the  name  of  reason,  philosophy,  com- 
mon sense  and  uncommon  sense,  what  has  all 
this  tirade  of  abuse,  heaped  upon  the  myths 
of  the  benighted  ages  of  the  past,  to  do 
with  the  negations  of  the  Infidels  of  to-day? 
Wherein  does  all  this  historical  slush  and 
cheap  wit  affect  the  philosophy  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  ?  What  relation  has  Christianity 
to  Pagan  idolatry  ?  I  thought  that  it  was  to 
cure  all  these  ills,  heal  all  these  wounds,  and 
lift  humanity  to  a  higher,  nobler  being,  that 
the  Christian  philosophy  was  instituted.  Sup- 
pose that  all  you  have  charged  to  the  gods  of 
antiquity  be  admitted  —  then  what  ?  Stuff  and 
nonsense  !  Do  you  think  your  readers  are  a 
lot  of  idiots  ? 

After  this,  my  dear  sir,  do  not  address  us 
as  though  we  were  so  many  consummate 


INDISCREET  HYPOTHESIS.  27 

fools,  or  the  sting  of  our  self-respect  will  be 
apt  to  beget  prejudice. 

I  trust  my  readers  will  pardon  me  for  thus 
stepping  aside  occasionally  to  address  His 
Pseudolency  in  person. 

With  the  last  half  of  page  twelve  (12)  our 
author  begins  his  comments  upon  the  inhuman 
wars  of  the  Old  Testament. 

"  We  are  asked  to  justify  these  frightful  pas- 
sages, these  infamous  laws  of  war,  because  the 
bible  is  the  word  of  God,"  says  this  apostle  of 
reason.  You  are  asked  to  do  no  such  thing. 
You  never  were  asked,  and  you  never  will  be 
asked,  to  do  any  such  thing  by  anybody  with 
as  much  intelligence  as  it  takes  to  put  a  pro- 
position into  simple  English. 

What  you  are  asked  is  to  take  into  consider- 
ation the  stages  of  development  through  which 
the  human  race  has  passed  since  the  wars  of 
the  Old  Testament  to  reach  what  it  now  is, 
and  then  to  recognize  in  the  tribes  of  barbari- 
ans of  those  days  the  "  people  "  against  whom 
the  "armies  of  invasion"  were  moving. 

It  would  be  a  terrible  chapter  to  read,  two 


28  MEPllISTO-MINOTA  URUS. 

thousand  years  from  now,  that  the  United 
States  forces  had  cut  down  Sitting  Bull  and 
his  people,  and  yet  it  may  be  doubted  if  even 
the  god  of  reason  would  paralyze  the  uplifted 
arm  of  the  government  —  if  Mr.  Sitting  Bull 
could  only  be  gotten  hold  of. 

I  am  free  to  admit  that  there  is  much  in  the 
Old  Testament  history  which,  looked  at  from 
our  distant  perspective,  is  horrible  and  revolt- 
ing ;  but  we  must  not  forget  that  ?nuc/i  of  the 
Old  Testament  is  simple  history,  setting  up  no 
claim  to  divine  inspiration,  except  as  to  a  faith- 
ful narration  of  facts,  events  with  which  God 
had  nothing  to  do,  or  for  which  he  was  no 
more  responsible  than  He  is  for  the  present 
war  in  the  East. 

Were  the  history  of  the  present  Russo- 
Turkish  war  to  be  read  two  thousand  years 
from  now,  it  would,  no  doubt,  stand  recorded 
as  a  Christian  war  on  the  part  of  Russia,  and 
the  historian  could  offer  abundant  evidence 
for  his  statement,  false  as  it  would  be. 

So,  no  doubt,  is  much  of  the  Old  Testament 
history.  There  are  many  rulers  who  claim  the 


OLD  TESTAMENT  WARS.  29 

authority  of  God  who  are  really  directed  by 
the  devil. 

Because  the  United  States  is  a  Christian 
nation  it  does  not  follow  that  every  ruler  of 
the  United  States  is  a  Christian,  nor  that 
if  he  gets  into  a  drunken  brawl  or  wages  an 
unholy  war  that  his  acts  are  sanctioned  by  the 
Christians1  God. 

And,  aside  from  all  this,  does  Mr.  Ingersoll 
find  anything  in  the  teachings  of  Christ  that 
countenances  war,  or  violence  of  any  kind  ? 
Does  he  not  know  that  the  old  law,  that  was 
made  for  the  barbarous  ages  of  the  past,  is 
repealed  in  the  new? 

How  a  lawyer  of  his  excellent  sagacity,  not 
to  speak  of  honesty,  could  make  such  a  plea 
as  he  makes  here  is,  certainly,  very  remarkable. 
But  a  personal  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Ingersoll 
makes  his  feigned  horror  of  war  extremely 
astonishing  —  to  put  it  mildly. 

To  return  to  the  text :  "  The  instant  that 
we  admit  that  a  book  is  too  sacred  to  be  rea- 
soned about,  we  are  mental  serfs,"  says  this 
politico-philosophic.  Well,  who  disputes  it  ? 


30  MEPHIS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

Again  :  "It  is  infinitely  absurd  to  suppose  that 
a  god  would  address  a  communication  to  in- 
telligent beings,  and  yet  make  it  a  crime  to  be 
punished  in  eternal  flames  for  them  to  use 
their  intelligence  for  the  purpose  of  under- 
standing his  communication."  Who  disputes 
it?  Who  ever  heard  of  a  god  of  that  kind? 
O,  Prince  of  Pettifoggers  ! 

These  are  only  samples  of  the  sentences 
with  which  he  crams  his  book.  His  favorite 
method  seems  to  be  to  make  a  statement  that 
nobody  disputes,  and  then  proceed  to  argue 
as  though  everybody  that  is  not  an  Infidel 
does  dispute  it. 

Here  is  a  brace  of  them  that  he  has  stand- 
ing out  by  themselves,  as  a  sort  of  couplet  — 
a  pair  of  metaphysical  twins,  as  it  were : 

"  Salvation  though  slavery  is  worthless. 
Salvation  from  slavery  is  inestimable." 

A  question  might  arise,  just  here,  as  to 
whether  His  Pseudolency  is  a  less  slave  to  the 
teachings  of  Voltaire,  Paine  and  Co.,  than  the 
Church  to  the  teachings  of  Christ — but  we 
will  not  raise  it. 


THE  DEVILS  OF  HIS  TORT.         31 

After  a  number  of  such  ultimatums  as  those 
we  have  quoted,  His  Pseudolency  devotes 
some  pages  to  the  devils  of  history.  It  is 
here  that  the  Mephisto  part  of  him  takes 
the  reins. 

Through  these  pages  there  is  the  most 
eloquent,  powerful  and,  as  I  may  say,  exhaust- 
ive defense  of  "  the  devils "  that  has  ever 
been  made  this  side  of  their  place  of  general 
rendezvous  —  the  lecturer  seems  to  make  this 
a  sort  of  peroration  to  his  former  discourse, 
and  hence  its  eloquence ;  he  speaks  as  a  minis- 
ter and  envoy  with  full  authority,  and  hence 
its  power;  he  makes  a  personal  matter  of  it, 
and  hence  it  is  entirely  exhaustive.  It  has 
been  said :  a  man  is  never  so  strong  as  when 
fighting  for  his  own  fireside ;  never  so  eloquent 
as  when  defending  his  family  history. 

It  is  here  that  he  utters  those  remarkable 
words  with  which  he  adorns  his  title-page : 
"  Banish  me  from  Eden  when  you  will,"  etc. 
But  they  do  not  stand  alone  here,  as  there  — 
he  prefaces  them  —  paves  the  way  to  their 
acceptance,  as  it  were.  Hear  what  an  elo- 


32  MEPHJSTO-MINOTAURUS. 

quent  and  touching  appeal  he  makes  in  this 
glowing  picture  of  the  elder  Mephisto. 

"  If  the  account  given  in  Genesis  is  really 
true,  ought  we  not,  after  all,  to  thank  this  ser- 
pent ?  He  was  the  first  schoolmaster,  the  first 
advocate  of  learning,  the  first  enemy  of  igno- 
rance, the  first  to  whisper  in  human  ears  the 
sacred  word  of  liberty,  the  creator  of  ambition, 
the  author  of  modesty,  of  inquiry,  of  doubt,  of 
investigation,  of  progress,  and  of  civilization." 

It  is  just  after  he  has  delivered  himself  of 
this,  while  standing  off  and  regarding  the 
masterpiece  of  his  art — this  matchless  pen- 
portrait  of  his  patron  and  hero,  that  he 
breaks  loose  from  himself,  lets  go  all  holds,  so 
to  speak,  and  gives  vent  to  the  "  Give  me  the 
storm  and  tempest  "  business. 

Ah,  "  what  a  piece  of  work  is  man  !  "  -  but 
here  we  must  end  the  quotation  —  we  might, 
however,  add  the  "how  infinite  in  faculties" 
part  of  it,  for  if  there  ever  was  an  evidence 
of  wonderful  "  faculties,"  we  have  it  here. 
O  temporal  O  mores!  —  Oh,  pshaw! 

After   this    Herculean    effort,    His    Pseudo- 


POT-POURRI.  33 

lency  takes  up  the  thought  with  which  he 
opened  his  lecture.  Why  he  dropped  it  so 
suddenly  before,  can  only  be  accounted  for, 
perhaps,  (as  a  like  style  of  procedure  pre- 
vails all  through  the  book,)  from  the  fact 
that  he  has  no  regular  gait  —  simply  plungeth 
where  he  listeth  and  thou  seest  the  dust 
thereof  but  canst  not  tell  whence  he  cometh 
or  whither  he  goeth,  and,  may  we  not  con- 
clude, "  so  is  every  one  that  is  born  of  the  " 
—  devil  ? 

The  first  sentence  of  his  lecture,  which 
we  have  already  given,  it  will  be  remembered, 
was  as  follows :  "  Each  nation  has  created  a 
god,"  etc.  The  one  with  which  he  renews  the 
thought  on  page  twenty-six  (26)  runs  after 
this  fashion  :  "  Nothing  can  be  plainer  than 
that  each  nation  gives  to  its  god  its  peculiar 
characteristics,  and  that  every  individual  gives 
to  his  god  his  personal  peculiarities."  He  con- 
tinues :  "  Man  has  no  ideas  and  can  have  none, 
except  those  suggested  by  his  surroundings. 
He  cannot  conceive  of  anything  utterly  unlike 
what  he  has  seen  or  felt,"  etc.  And  so  he 


3  4  MEPHIS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

goes  on  in  his  philosophical  semi-plagiarisms. 
But  I  have  less  fault  to  find  with  these  bor- 
rowed scraps  of  wisdom  than  the  ultimatum 
with  which  he  follows  them.  It  is,  surely,  as 
illogical  a  sequence  as  he  could  have  possibly 
blundered  into.  Here  it  is: 

"  Beyond  nature  man  cannot  go  even  in 
thought ;  above  nature  he  cannot  rise  ;  below 
nature  he  cannot  fall." 

Now  suppose  that  instead  of  this  pot-pourri 
we  should  substitute  the  following: 

Man  has  no  ideas,  and  can  have  none,  ex- 
cept those  that  are  founded  in  fact,  (this  is, 
virtually,  the  boiling  down  of  His  Pseudo- 
lency's  pot,  after  the  impurities  have  been 
skimmed  off,) — which,  once  admitted,  this 
follows : 

Man  can,  therefore,  conceive  of  nothing 
which  does  not,  in  some  form  or  degree,  exist. 
Again  : 

Man  can  aspire  to  nothing  of  which  he  has 
no  conception.  The  existence  of  aspiration, 
therefore,  necessarily  implies  conception  ;  con- 
ception necessarily  implies  being — fact. 


THE  LOGICAL  SEQUENCE.  35 

Man's  one  supreme  aspiration  is  immortality 
and  eternal  life  —  heaven ;  therefore  the  ex- 
istence of  heaven  is  a  fact. 

So,  as  I  say,  I  have  little  fault  to  find  with 
Mr.  Ingersoll's  apparent  plagiarisms;  it  is  to 
his  sequences  that  I  object. 

The  author,  next,  takes  occasion  to  offer 
an  abridged  commentary  on  the  fourth  chapter 
of  St.  Matthew,  which  I  will  give,  as  it  is  quite 
brief,  quotation  included  : 

"  Then  was  Jesus  led  up  of  the  spirit  into 
the  wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the  devil. 
And  when  the  tempter  came  to  Him,  he  said: 
If  thou  be  the  Son  of  God  command  that  these 
stones  be  made  bread.  But  he  answered  and 
said  :  It  is  written,  Man  shall  not  live  by  bread 
alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out 
of  the  mouth  of  God  ! 

"  Then  the  devil  taketh  Him  up  into  the 
holy  city,  and  setteth  Him  upon  a  pinnacle  of 
the  temple,  and  saith  unto  Him:  If  thou  be 
the  Son  of  God,  cast  thyself  down,  for  it  is 
written,  He  shall  give  His  angels  charge  con- 
cerning thee,  lest  at  any  time  thou  dash  thy 


3  6  MEPH/S  TO-M1NO  TA  UR  US. 

foot  against  a  stone.  Jesus  said  unto  him  : 
It  is  written  again,  Thou  shalt  not  tempt  the 
Lord  thy  God.  Again  the  devil  taketh  him 
up  into  an  exceeding  high  mountain  and  show- 
eth  him  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the 
glory  of  them,  and  saith  unto  him :  All  these 
will  I  o-Jve  thee  if  thou  wilt  fall  down  and  wor- 

o 

ship  me." 

Here  are  Mr.  Ingersoll's  comments: 
"  The  Christians  now  claim  that  Jesus  was 
God.  If  he  was  God,  of  course  the  devil 
knew  that  fact,  and  yet  according  to  this 
account,  the  devil  took  the  omnipotent  God 
and  placed  Him  upon  a  pinnacle  of  the  temple, 
and  endeavored  to  induce  Him  to  dash  Him- 
self against  the  earth.  Failing  in  that,  he 

o  o 

took  the  Creator,  owner  and  governor  of  the 
universe,  up  into  an  exceeding  high  mountain 
and  offered  him  this  world  —  this  grain  of  sand 
-if  He,  the  God  of  all  the  worlds,  would  fall 
down  and  worship  him,  a  poor  devil,  without 
even  a  tax  title  to  one  foot  of  dirt !  Is  it  pos- 
sible the  devil  was  such  an  idiot?  Should  any 
great  credit  be  given  to  this  Deity  for  not 


PALPABLE  PETTIFOGGING.  37 

being  caught  with  such  chaff?  Think  of  it  ! 
The  devil,  the  prince  of  sharpers,  the  king  of 
cunning,  the  master  of  finesse,  trying  to  bribe 
God  with  a  grain  of  sand  that  belonged  to 
God !  Is  there  in  all  the  religious  literature 
of  the  world  anything  more  grossly  absurd 
than  this?" 

Again,  I  say,  oh,  Prince  of  Pusillanimous 
Pettifoggers  !  that  could  put  in  print  such  a 
construction  as  this  ;  for  how  can  it  be  possi- 
ble that  so  brilliant.a  man  could  have  been  so 
stupid  ? 

Yet,  with  that  charity  for  ignorance  which  I 
have  often  demanded,  no  doubt,  on  my  own 
behalf,  I  will  proceed  for  the  time  being  upon 
the  presumption  that  His  Pseudolency  was 
innocently  in  earnest,  and  give  what  I  have 
always  supposed  to*  be  the  very  common-sense 
acceptance  of  the  passage  in  question. 

Christ  allegorically  represents,  here,  human- 
ity in  three  different  stages  or  conditions,  each 
subject  to  the  temptations  of  evil  according  to 
his  place  or  condition. 

In  the  first,  He  personates  that  unfortunate 


3  8  MEPHIS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

class  who,  unprovided  with  the  necessities  of 
life,  are  tempted  to  seek  the  means  of  physical 
existence  through  other  than  the  proper  chan- 
nels. To  these  the  lesson  is  found  in  the 
answer  He  gives :  "  Man  shall  not  live  by 
bread  alone,  but  by  every  word  that  proceed- 

eth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God." 

/ 

In  the  second,  Christ  symbolizes  those  who 
are  tempted  to  test,  as  a  matter  of  simple 
experiment,  the  promises  of  God.  To  these 
He  would  say,  "  Thou  shalt  not  tempt  the 
Lord  thy  God." 

In  the  third,  He  typifies  those  who,  by  vir- 
tue of  superior  abilities,  are  capable  of  rising 
to  power  and  place,  and  who  are  tempted  to 
secure  these  ends  even  at  the  cost  of  their  own 
souls.  The  lesson  is  a  very  suggestive  one. 
To  these  He  would  say, "  Entertain  the  thought 
not  for  a  single  moment ;  there  is  more  danger 
of  your  falling  than  all  others" ;  or,  in  the 
words  of  the  answer  given,  to  such  a  tempter 
say,  "  Get  thee  hence,  Satan  !  " 

That  this  entire  passage  is  simply  figurative, 
and  was  intended  as  nothing  else,  is  demon- 


A   THOUGHT  FOR  MR.   TTNDALL. 


39 


strated  in  the  thought  of  seeing  all  the  king- 
doms of  the  world  from  an  exceeding  high 
mountain.  Literally  considered,  it  would  have 
required  an  exceeding  high  mountain,  sure 
enough,  from  which  to  take  in  so  extensive  a 
view. 

Now,  I  am  not  a  preacher  (this  is,  however, 
no  doubt,  quite  evident),  nor  have  I  oppor- 
tunity, perhaps  I  should  say  inclination,  to 
consult  the  commentators,  and  so  I  don't 
know  whether  this  is  an  orthodox  version  or 
not,  nor  do  I  care ;  but  it  strikes  me  as  being 
pre-eminently  common -sense -odox,  and  I'll 
chance  it. 

[I  am  tempted  here  to  borrow  another  brace 
of  Dr.  Holmes'  brackets,  and  as  the  good  Doc- 
tor has  plenty  to  spare,  I  think  I  shall  do  so, 
.just  to  drop  in  two  little  items  apropos  of  two 
of  the  three  answers  given  by  Christ  in  the 
quotations  we  have  cited.  Here  they  are: 

I  think  that  the  one  I  have  numbered  "  se- 
cond "  has  especial  application  to,  and  includes 
excellent  advice  for,  Mr.  Tyndall  in  relation  to 
his  "  prayer  test," 


4O  MEPI/IS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

The  "  third  "  may  be  studied  with  possible 
good  effect  by  the  gifted  and  accomplished 
hero  of  this  paper,  j 

Immediately  following  this  dissertation  on 
the  temptation,  our  author  favors  us  with  the 
following : 

"  These  devils,  according  to  the  Bible,  were 
of  various  kinds ;  some  could  speak  and  hear, 
others  were  deaf  and  dumb.  All  could  not  be 
cast  out  in  the  same  way.  The  deaf  and  dumb 
spirits  were  quite  difficult  to  deal  with.  St. 
Mark  tells  us  of  a  gentleman  who  brought  his 
son  to  Christ.  The  boy,  it  seems,  was  pos- 
sessed of  a  dumb  spirit,  over  which  the  disciples 
had  no  control.  Jesus  said  unto  the  spirit,  I 
charge  thee  come  out  of  him,  and  enter  no 
more  into  him  !  Whereupon  the  deaf  spirit 
(having  heard  what  was  said)  cried  out  (being 
dumb)  and  immediately  vacated  the  premises." 

Now,  for  profoundness  of  stupidity,  and  ab- 
solute metaphysical  idiocy,  I  challenge  the 
world  to  show  anything  that  will  compare  with 
that !  It  is,  positively,  a  disgrace  and  slander 
upon  the  intelligence  of  Infidelity  (for  Mr. 


OH,  PRINCE  OF  COMMENTATORS.  41 

Ingersoll  holds  a  position  as  the  greatest  In- 
fidel of  his  country)  that  such  a  construction 
as  this  should  get  into  print.  Need  I  explain 
the  text?  Yes,  for  His  Pseudolency's  sake, 
for  I  see  by  my  morning's  paper  that  he  re- 
peats it  in  his  lecture  in  New  York.  I  would 
not  insult  an  intelligent  reader  by  deeming  it 
necessary. 

Know,  then,  oh,  Prince  of  commentators, 
that  it  was  simply  the  boy  who  was  dumb,  not 
the  spirit  that  caused  the  affliction.  For  all 
we  know,  that  evil  spirit  may  have  had  the 
power  of  hearing  and  speaking,  even  to  as 
subtle  purpose  as  yourself.  We  may  be  as- 
sured of  this  much  :  that  he  knew  who  was 
talking  to  him,  and  obeyed,  as  any  sensible 
devil  would  do  under  the  circumstances, —  did 
not  lift  up  his  puny  strength  in  rebellion.  Let 
this  serve  us  all  as  a  valuable  lesson  ! 

But  even  granting,  as  you  put  it,  that  it  was 
the  evil  spirit  that  was  deaf  and  dumb,  and 
not  the  boy,  do  you  not  realize  that  the  power 
that  was  able  to  deliver  the  boy  of  his  in- 
firmity, i.  e.,  cast  out  the  devil,  was  sufficient  to 

2* 


42  MEPHISTO-MINOT.  \  I  /,'/  '.s. 

give  hearing  and  speech  to  the  devil  He  cast 
out  ?  Oh,  what  a  precious  mess  you  have 
made  of  it ! 

Our  author  devotes  the  next  twenty  pages 
of  his  work  to  a  discussion  of  cause  and  effect. 
All  readers  are  conversant  with  what  he  offers 
here,  and  have  been  for  many  years  ;  he  brings 
nothing-  new. 

o 

It  would  be  tedious  to  follow  him  through 
the  throes  of  his  struggle  —  his  plunging  and 
bellowing  as  he  starts  off  at  full  speed,  first 
in  the  beaten  track  of  one  herd,  then  in 
another,  then,  retracing  his  steps  to  start  on  a 
third,  then  breaking  across  paths ;  crashing 
through  forests,  and  pawing  the  beautiful 
grasses  and  flowers  that  have  been  gathering 
their  strength  and  glory  for  years.  No  ;  we 
will  not  try  to  follow  him  where  he  loses  him- 
self again  and  again  —  in  the  jungles  where 
many  sincere  and  earnest  men  have  been  for- 
ever lost  —  in  the  dark  and  gloomy  and  end- 
less caverns  of  doubt  —  the  unfathomable 
depths  of  the  mysterious  —  the  limitless 
heights  of  the  unknown  !  We  will  wait,  and 


suus  CUI^UE  MOS.  43 

he  will  soon  return  to  the  place  whence  he 
started;  for  he  is  lost,  and  goes  ever  round 
and  round  ! 

Ah  !  he  is  already  here  !  And  now  we  shall 
hear  what  he  says,  for  though  it  is  not  new 
it  is  unique. 

"  Thought  is  a  form  of  force.  We  walk  with 
the  same  force  with  which  we  think.  Man  is 
an  organism,  that  changes  several  forms  of 
force  into  thought  force.  Man  is  a  machine, 
into  which  we  put  what  we  call  food,  and  pro- 
duce what  we  call  thought.  Think  of  that 
wonderful  chemistry  by  which  bread  was 
changed  into  the  divine  tragedy  of  Hamlet." 

It  will  be  observed  in  this  passage,  as  in  all 
that  His  Pseudolency  is  pleased  to  write  or 
speak,  there  is  no  apparent  evidence  of  hu- 
mility. He  deals  entirely  in  ultimatums. 
Suus  cuique  mos,  and  this  is  his.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  he  will  outgrow  this,  but  the  pros- 
pect is,  certainly,  not  flattering. 

The  question  which  he  disposes  of  here  so 
summarily,  I  need  hardly  state,  is  one  with 
which  the  greatest  minds  have  been  struggling 


44  MEPHIS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

for  centuries  ;  the  brightest  lights  of  his  own 
philosophical  household  —  his  very  household 
gods,  as  it  were  —  have  trembled  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  awful  responsibility  of  pronouncing 
upon  it ;  and  yet,  with  all  the  assurance  of  a 
mountebank,  this  man  simply  waves  his  quill 
in  air,  it  poises  but  a  moment,  descends,  traces 
a  few  brief  lines  on  the  page,  and  lo  !  the  mys- 
tery of  mysteries  is  solved  ! 

Through  all  the  years  of  the  past,  in  which 
scientists  have  wrestled  with  fact  and  phi- 
losophy, the  principle  involved  here  has  ex- 
hausted the  highest  resources  of  all  schools. 
In  this  struggle  have  been  numbered  the 
brightest  geniuses  and  most  profound  phi- 
losophers, the  astute  scholars  of  the  world. 
Honest,  sincere,  noble,  genuine  men  have 
devoted  their  lives  to  the  solution  of  this  one 
great  problem  that  underlies  all  others. 

It  has  appeared  in  a  multitude  of  forms, 
and  has  been  considered  from  as  many  differ- 
ent standpoints. 

It  is  presented  here  in  its  latest  form,  which 
resolves  itself  into  this  : 


MATERIALISM  VERSUS  SCIENCE.  45 

Whether  the  action  of  the  brain  causes 
thought,  or  whether  thought,  an  extraneous 
something  which  we  cannot  comprehend, 
causes  the  action  of  the  brain. 

But  the  clouds  which  so  long  obscured  the 
horizon  of  faith  have,  at  last,  been  dispelled 
by  the  sunlight  of  science,  thank  God,  and  now 
we  may  walk  out  in  the  morning  of  the  glori- 
ous day  !  The  path  is  very  plain  and  very 
simple.  We  have  only  to  start  right,  and 
then  keep  straight  ahead.  Truths  that  are 
of  most  value  are  usually  expressed  in  sim- 
plest form ;  they  are  seldom  found  in  the 
labyrinthine  depths  of  indefinite  metaphysics. 

Now,  had  Mr.  Ingersoll  even  consulted 
the  very  primer  of  science,  he  would  have 
found,  standing  out  prominently,  as  the  first 
letter  of  its  alphabet,  this  incontrovertible 
truth  —  Matter  is  inert. 

Had  he  taken  the  trouble  to  consult  Prof. 
Bain,  who  is  the  acknowledged  leader  of 
the  most  recent  school  of  materialists,  —  a 
school  which  embraces  the  acute  scholars  and 
brightest  minds  of  that  philosophy  —  he  would 


46  MEPHIS  TO-M1NO  TA  UR  US. 

have  found  even  him  admitting  that  matter 
is  inert  and  cannot  originate  force. 

Had  he  read  a  little  farther  in  his  primer 
he  would  have  found  that  there  are  but  two 
things  in  the  universe  —  matter  and  mind. 

It  would  have  .required  but  a  very  gentle 
exercise  of  his  reasoning  faculties  to  show  him 
that  since  matter  is  inert  and  cannot  originate 
force  or  motion,  and  mind  is  the  only  other 
existence  in  the  universe,  force  or  motion 
must  emanate  from  mind. 

And  then  he  could,  surely,  have  endured  the 
further  mental  effort  necessary  to  show  him 
that  (as  he  had  already  committed  himself  to 
the  proposition  that  thought  is  a  form  of  force) 
thought  must  emanate  from  mind,  not  matter, 
or  bread,  as  he  puts  it. 

And  all  this  without  going  beyond  the  very 
primer  of  science. 

It  is  by  no  means  sure,  however,  that  he 
would  have  had  the  honesty  to  confess  to  the 
truth  of  that  which  we  have  shown  here,  simple 
as  it  is.  Now,  as  I  have  already  stated,  I  usu- 
ally accord  to  all  men  honesty  of  purpose,  but 


CAUSE  AND  EFFECT,  "/^."  47 

I  fear  we  must  make  an  exception  here,  and  also 
in  the  veryn  ext  point  he  seeks  to  make,  for  it 
could  not  have  been  a  lack  of  mental  acumen 
(for  Mr.  Ingersoll  is  as  brilliant  a  man  as  there 
is  on  the  continent)  which  prompted  him,  on 
the  page  following  the  quotation  I  have  given, 
to  start  out  to  prove  that  "  matter,  force,  law, 
order,  cause  and  effect,  exist  without  a  being 
superior  to  nature  "  in  the  way  that  he  does. 
Here  are  his  words: 

"  Now,  suppose  that  two  atoms  should  come 
together,  would  there  be  an  effect  ?  Yes." 
From  this  he  makes  to  follow,  law,  order,  etc. 
It  will  be  observed  that  his  "suppose"  brings 
about  an  effect  without  a  caiise,  which  is  scien- 
tifically impossible.  Of  course  if  two  atoms 
should  come  together,  all  else  that  he  claims 
would  follow  ;  but  that  which  is  embraced  in 
the  little  word  if,  or  his  "  suppose,"  is  just  what 
is  in  controversy. 

It  were  easy  to  demolish  the  entire  super- 
structure which  he  so  artfully  puts  together  in 
the  pages  that  follow  here, —  for  it  all  stands 
upon  the  same  foundation,  this  same  "  sup- 


48  MEPHIS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

pose,"  this  same  little  if  with  which  he  start- 
ed,—by  the  application  of  the  two  simple 
lessons  we  have  referred  to  from  the  little 
first  primer  of  Science;  for  scientific  truth 
is  as  relentless  as  it  is  merciless  and  power- 
ful, and  the  two  little  dynamic  atoms  in  our 
possession  would  reduce  his  rickety  old  mu- 
seum of  nondescript  curiosities  to  a  mass  of 
worthless  debris  in  short  order. 

To  those  who  have  not  had  the  honor  of  a 
personal  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Ingersoll,  the 
wonder  is,  no  doubt,  that  a  man  of  his  appar- 
ent erudition  in  other  directions  should  be  so 
grossly  ignorant  of  the  very  first  principles  of 
science,  and  still  have  the  audacity  to  send 
out  a  volume  involving  so  many  scientific 
theories.  Not  so,  however,  with  any  one  who 
may  know  him. 

He  is  a  nineteenth  century  Lawyer  and  the 
paragon  of  Advocates ;  of  massive  brain,  of 
brilliant  wit,  of  incomparable  repartee.  He  is 
acute  but  not  accurate,  wise  but  not  learned, 
great  but  not  god-like ;  with  an  entire  absence 
of  special  knowledge  he  dons  the  garb  of  a 


A  PLEA  FOR  CRAMMING.  49 

pkilosoplic  with  admirable  skill,  for  he  possess- 
es tact,  talent  and  tenacity,  and  is  unfettered 
by  men,  methods,  or  modesty.  He  is  more 
powerful  on  the  rostrum  than  on  paper,— 
better  suited  to  the  arena  than  the  library  or 
boudoir.  He  is  a  master  of  trick  and  of  ora- 
tory ;  indeed,  in  this,  I  think  he  is  without  a 
peer  in  America.  He  has  a  quaint  style  of 
putting  his  sentences,  which  gives  them  a  pe- 
culiar attraction  ;"  and  so  he  is  quite  popular 
with  the  masses,  particularly  so  with  those 
who  would  live  without  the  restraint  of  law  — 
his  very  audacity,  with  this  class,  is  a  commen- 
dation. 

But,  really,  I  must  beg  pardon  —  I  did 
not  intend  to  become  his  biographer.  I  am 
rather  disposed  to  laughter,  and  when  I 
find  him  urging  with  so  much  eloquence  that 
"  Man  is  a  machine  into  which  we  put  what 
we  call  food  and  produce  what  we  call 
thought,"  I  cannot  help  the  reflection,  what  a 
great  pity  it  is  that  we  were  not  all  crammed 
in  our  youth. 

We  have  but  to  turn  a  page  or  two  farther 


50  .!//, YY/AV  TO-MINOTA  UK  US. 

to  find  that  Mr.  Ingersoll  makes  an  admission 
that  is  fatal  to  his  entire  philosophy.  I  will 
quote  the  verse  complete,  for  I  desire  to  give 
him  the  full  force  of  connections. 

"  Nature,  so  far  as  we  can  discern,  without 
passion  and  without  intuition,  forms,  trans- 
forms, and  retransforms  forever.  She  neither 
weeps  nor  rejoices.  She  produces  man  with- 
out purpose,  and  obliterates  him  without  re- 
gret. She  knows  no  distinction  between  the 
beneficial  and  the  hurtful.  Poison  and  nutri- 
tion, pain  and  joy,  life  and  death,  smiles  and 
tears  are  alike  to  her.  She  is  neither  merci- 
ful nor  cruel.  She  cannot  be  flattered  by 
worship  nor  melted  by  tears.  She  does  not 
know  even  the  attitude  of  prayer.  She  ap- 
preciates no  difference  between  poison  in  the 
fangs  of  snakes  and  mercy  in  the  hearts  of 
men.  Only  tJirougk  Man  does  natiire  take 
cognizance  of  the  good,  the  true,  and  tJie  beau- 
tiful;  and,  so  far  as  we  know,  man  is  the 
highest  intelligence." 

The  sentence  I  have  put  in  italics  —  only 
through  Man  does  nat^tre  take  cognizance  of 


A  FATAL  ADMISSION.  51 

the  good,  the  true,  and  the  beautiful —  is  not 
italicised  in  the  original.  With  this  exception 
I  have  given  it  just  as  it  appears  there.  Now 
I  propose  to  let  it  remain,  just  as  it  is,  with- 
out comment,  or  analysis,  or  any  wotd  of 
mine  whatever. 

And  there  it  stands!  —  a  monument  of  truth, 

\ 

looking  down  upon  the  debris  of  error  that 
is  all  about  it !  There  it  stands  !  Kissing  the 
sunlight  of  its  higher,  purer  atmosphere,  while 
malarious  contagion  broods  round  its  base ! 
There  it  stands !  in  solitary  grandeur,  hero 
and  conqueror,  in  the  very  midst  of  the  battle- 
field, while  the  self-slain  legions  of  error  strew, 
everywhere,  the  plain  ! 

Let  us  carve  an  inscription  upon  it  —  an  in- 
scription that  has  graced  the  monuments  of 
many  battle-fields  before. 

"  Truth  crushed  to  earth  will  rise  again, 

The  immortal  years  of  God  are  hers! 
But  Error,  wounded,  writhes  in  pain 
And  dies  amid  her  worshipers." 

A  careful  observer  will  notice  that  it  is 
seldom  the  case  but  that  in  every  contro- 
versy Truth  will  assert  herself,  Was  there 


5  2  ME  PHIS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

ever  an  instance  where  she  was  more  sig- 
nally successful  than  here  ?  I  have  never 
known  one.  It  was  easily  done  —  the  means 
of  Truth  are  usually  simple.  His  Pseudo- 
lency  was  merely  allowed  to  proceed,  and 
the  Minotaur  part  of  him  got  the  advantage 
of  the  Mephisto  part  of  him,  and  as  he 
went  plunging  and  bellowing  and  roaring 
through  the  fields  of  philosophy,  he  fell 
over  one  of  the  corner-stones  of  science  that 
I  spoke  of  a  while  ago. 

Hie  jacet  Ingersoll — His  Pseudolency  has 
more  lives  than  a  cat.  Before  we  can  finish 
his  epitaph,  we  find  him  up  again  and  lashing 
his  sides  with  redoubled  fury.  How  he  roars, 
as  he  pronounces  the  following : 

"  Would  an  infinite,  wise,  good  and  power- 
ful God,  intending  to  produce  man,  commence 
with  the  lowest  possible  forms  of  life,  with  the 
simplest  organisms  that  can  be  imagined,  and 
during  innumerable  periods  of  time,  slowly 
and  almost  imperceptibly  improve  upon  the 
rude  beginning,  until  man  was  evolved? 
Would  countless  ages  thus  be  wasted  in  the 


ON  THE  WRONG  SIDE  OF  THE  FENCE. 


53 


production  of  awkward  forms,  afterward  aban- 
doned ?  " 

Well,  what  would  Mr.  Ingersoll  say  to  this? 
It  strikes  me  that  these  questions  would  be 
more  pertinent  if  directed  to  an  Infidel.  I  am 
unacquainted  with  any  form  of  Christianity 
that  holds  to  the  evolution  theory  of  creation, 
so  far  as  man  is  concerned. 

The  god  which  His  Pseudolency  paws  and 
bellows  around  so  threateningly  is  not  the 
Christian's  God ;  it  is  the  boasted  god  of  the 
Infidels.  It  will  be  discovered,  here,  that  our 
Minotaur  has  simply  lost  all  control  of  him- 
self, in  his  rage,  and,  not  observing  that  he  has 
got  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  philosophical 
fence,  he  is  goring  his  own  god  and  tearing 
up  his  own  plantation. 

Hear  him.  again  ;  he  is  becoming  very  fero- 
cious : 

"  What  would  we  think  of  a  father  who 
should  give  a  farm  to  his  children,  and,  before 
giving  them  possession,  should  plant  upon  it 
thousands  of  deadly  shrubs  and  vines  ;  should 
stock  it  with  ferocious  beasts  and  poisonous 


54 


MEPHISTO-MINOTA  URUS. 


reptiles ;  should  take  pains  to  put  a  few 
swamps  in  the  neighborhood  to  breed  ma- 
laria ;  should  so  arrange  matters  that  the 

'  O 

ground  would  occasionally  open  and  swallow 
a  few  of  his  darlings,  and  besides  all  this, 
should  establish  a  few  volcanoes  in  the  im- 
mediate vicinity,  that  might  at  any  moment 
overwhelm  his  children  with  rivers  of  fire. 
Suppose  that  this  father  neglected  to  tell 
his  children  which  of  the  beasts  were  deadly  ; 
that  the  reptiles  were  poisonous ;  and  kept 
the  volcano  business  a  profound  secret ;  would 
we  pronounce  him  angel,  or  fiend  ?  " 

Now,  let  us  admit,  for  the  while,  that  His 
Pseudolency  is  right  in  maintaining  that  there 
is  no  such  a  being  as  the  Christian  God —  the 
natural  state  of  the  world,  which  he  has  very 
accurately  pictured  as  a  farm,  is  still  the  same. 
This  is  no  catch-logic,  it  is  a  fair  proposition. 

Mr.  In^ersoll's  entire  effort  in  his  lecture  is 

o 

to  prove  that  the  Christian  Gocl  is  a  myth  ;  or, 
in  other  words,  that  there  is  no  such  a  being, 
and  sets  up,  instead,  his  god  of  Reason,  what- 
ever that  may  be,  as  the  author  and  finisher 


THE  MI  NO  TAUR  AT  BA  T.  5  5 

of  all  things.  He  then  gives  a  very  graphic 
and  correct  description  of  the  world  as  we  find 
it;  it  follows,  therefore,  that  the  "infinite 
fiend"  who  created  the  world  is  Mr.  Ingersoll's 
god  of  Reason.  This  is  the  only  logical  de- 
duction. 

There  is  but  one  way  by  which  Mr.  Inger- 
soll  can  save  his  god  from  the  anathema  he 
hurls  here,  and  that  is  in  the  theory  that  the 
world  was  created  by  chance.  He  will  hardly 
espouse  this  ;  the  Mephisto  part  of  him  is  too 
cunning  to  permit  it. 

Behold,  then,  our  Minotaur  at  bay  !  Noth- 
ing is  left  to  him  now  but  to  lash  his  sides 
and  paw  the  dust  and  foam  in  impotent  rage. 
While  he  is  thus  employed,  let  us  have  a  little 
talk  to  ourselves,  for  while  Mr.  Ingersoll  is 
silenced  he  is  not  answered. 

The  world  is  full  of  "  deadly  shrubs  and 
vines,  and  ferocious  beasts,  and  poisonous  rep- 
tiles, and  malarious  swamps,  and  volcanoes/' 
and  millions  of  other  agents  of  death  that  Mr. 
Ingersoll  does  not  name.  Nay,  even  we  are 
ourselves  destroyers. 


5  6  MEP///S  TO-)f/.\'()  T.  \  I 'It  US. 

Every  moment  of  our  existence  is  at  the 
expense  of  myriads  of  other  existences. 

A  million  lives  are  sacrificed  that  I  may 
finish  this  line. 

And  yet  we  call  our  God  a  God  of  infinite 
mercy,  tenderness  and  love. 

How  shall  we  reconcile  this? 

This  is  the  great  stumbling-block  of  Chris- 
tians—  Christians  who  think  just  enough  to 
get  into  a  mystery  without  thinking  enough 
to  get  out. 

And  this  is  the  perpetual  sneer  of  Skeptics, 
and  the  taunt  of  the  Infidels.  Let  us  see  if 
we  may  not  meet  the  issue  fairly,  and  dispose 
of  it  fairly  and  conclusively.  If  we  do  this 
we  are  consistent  Christians;  if  we  do  not,  we 
are  inconsistent.  A  man  is  worse  than  a  cow- 
ard who  wrould  dodge  this  question — 'he  is  a 
suicide.  There  is  no  one  so  contemptible  as 
he  who  willingly  deceives  himself.  Oh,  what 
a  hollow  mockery  is  that  faith  that  is  founded 
upon  a  lie ! 

I  desire  to  say,  right  here,  that  no  society, 
religious  or  otherwise,  or  any  person  or  per- 


THE  LOGIC  OF  POSSIBILITIES. 


57 


sons  whomsoever,  save  and  except  myself,  are 
either  directly  or  indirectly  responsible  for  the 
position  I  am  about  to  assume. 

I   hold  then  : 

First.  The  laws  of  the  physical  universe,  just 
as  they  exist,  are  the  only  possible  laws  to 
the  physical. 

Second.  The  laws  of  the  spiritual  universe, 
just  as  they  exist,  are  the  only  possible  laws 
to  the  spiritual. 

Third.     The    conditions    of  life    and    death, 
pleasure  and  pain,  etc.,  as  pertaining  to  the 
physical,   and   the  conditions   of  happiness 
and  grief,  etc.,  as  pertaining  to  the  spiritual, 
are  the  positive  and  negative    poles,  abso- 
lutely   necessary,    respectively    to    physical 
and  spiritual  existence. 
I    shall    endeavor    to    sustain    these    three 
propositions    from    a    purely  scientific  stand- 
point, and  by  strict,  logical  method. 

In  relation,  then,  to  our  first  proposition, 
that  the  laws  of  the  physical  universe,  just  as 
they  exist,  are  the  only  possible  laws  to  the 
physical,  I  desire  to  offer  : 


5  8  MEPIIfS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

First.  That  bed-rock  of  scientific  truth,  Mat- 
ter, is  indestructible. 

Second.  If  matter  is  indestructible,  it  follows 
that  matter  must  always  exist. 

Third.  If  matter  must  always  exist,  it  fol- 
lows that  matter  can  have  no  end. 

Fourth.  If  matter  can  have  no  end,  it  follows 
that  matter  could  have  had  no  beginning. 
Since  that  which  has  a  beginning  must  have 
an  end.  Since  that  which  has  no  beginning 
can  have  no  end.  An  axiom. 

Fifth.  If  matter  had  no  beginning  and  can 
have  no  end,  it  follows  that  the  laws  which 
govern  matter  had  no  beginning  and  can  have 
no  end.  Since  the  law  which  governs  must 
be  co-existent  with  the  thing  governed. 

Sixth.  If  the  laws  which  govern  matter  had 
no  beginning  and  can  have  no  end,  it  fol- 
lows that  the  laws  which  govern  matter  (or 
the  physical),  are  the  only  laws  possible  to 
the  physical,  as  claimed  in  our  First  propo- 
sition. 

In   relation  to  our   second    proposition,  re- 
specting   the     spiritual     universe,    the    same 


THE  LOGIC  CONTIVI'ED-  59 

method   need    only    be    pursued    in    order   to 
establish  it. 

We  will  beo-in  with  that  other  bed-rock  of 

o 

scientific  truth  :  Mind  is  indestructible. 

You  know  the  scientists  tell  us  that  there 
are  but  two  things  that  exist  in  the  universe, 
—matter  and  mind — that  the  first  is  inert,  but 
that  both  are  indestructible.  That  is  why  I 
call  the  two  principles  I  have  given  the  bed- 
rock principles  —  or  the  two  principles  that 
underlie  all  others. 

To  establish  then,  our  second  proposition, 
we  will  begin  : 

First.     Mind  is  indestructible. 
Second.     If  mind  is  indestructible,  it    follows 

that  mind  (by  which  we  mean  the  spiritual) 

must  always  exist. 
Third.     If  mind  must  always  exist,  it   follows 

that  mind  can  have  no  end. 
Fourth.     If  mind  can  have  no  end,  it  follows 

that   mind  could    have    had   no    beginning, 

since  that  which  has  a  beginning  must  have 

an  end, —  since  that  which  has  no  beginning 

can  have  no  end.     An  axiom. 


60  MEPHIS  TO-MINO  TA  UP  US. 

Fifth.  If  mind  had  no  beginning,  and  can 
have  no  end,  it  follows  that  the  laws  which 
govern  mind  ( or  the  spiritual)  had  no  be- 
ginning, and  can  have  no  end, —  since  the 
law  which  governs  must  be  co-existent  with 
the  thing  governed. 

Sixth.  If  the  laws  which  govern  mind  (or 
the  spiritual)  had  no  beginning,  and  can 
have  no  end,  it  follows  that  the  laws  which 
govern  mind  (or  the  spiritual)  are  the  only 
laws  possible  to  the  spiritual,  as  claimed  in 
our  second  proposition. 

I  think  we  may  reach  these  two  conclusions 
from  another  standpoint — rthe  idea  of  God- 
ship.  By  God  we  mean  the  Supreme  Being, 
and,  as  in  the  Persian  Go  da  or  Khoda,  we  im- 
ply by  the  word  God  the  idea  of  lord,  master, 
ruler.  The  qualities  absolutely  necessary  to 
Godship  are  those  of  omniscience,  omnipres- 
ence, and  omnipotence.  No  doubt  we  shall 
all  agree  in  this. 

Well,  if  God  existed  prior  to  matter  or  the 
identity  of  other  existences,  of  what  could  he 
have  been  omniscient  ?  Wherein  could  he 


GOD  AND  MATTER  CO-EXISTENT.  6  I 

have  been  omnipresent  ?  Over  whom  or 
what  could  he  have  been  omnipotent  ?  Or,  in 
other  words,  how  could  he  have  been  omni- 
scient of  nothing,  omnipresent  nowhere,  om- 
nipotent over  nobody  ?  Or,  with  the  simple 
meaning  of  the  very  word  God,  how  could  he 
be  lord,  master,  or  ruler  over  nothingness  ? 

Clearly,  then,  since  God  had  no  beginning, 
and  can  have  no  end,  mind  had  no  beginning, 
and  can  have  no  end,  and  matter  had  no  be- 
ginning, and  can  have  no  end  ;  and  therefore 
the  laws  that  govern  mind  and  matter  had  no 
beginning,  and  can  have  no  end.  Since  the 
laws  that  govern  must  be  co-existent  with  the 

O 

thing  governed,  they  are,  therefore,  the  only 
possible  laws  to  Spiritual  and  Physical  exist- 
ence. 

It  may  be  well  to  drop  in,  right  here,  an 
additional  scientific  truth,  lest  our  Pseudo- 
Divinity-Doctors  shall  throw  up  their  hands 
in  holy  horror,  realizing  that  if  everything 
that  has  a  beginning  must  have  an  end,  man 
having  had  a  beginning,  according  to  their 
theology,  must  have  an  end.  Here  it  is  • 


6  2  MEPHIS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

Man  was  made  of  the  two  already  existing 
materials  —  matter,  which  the  Bible  speaks  of 
as  "  dust  of  the  earth,"  and  mind,  which  the 
Bible  calls  "  breath  of  life  " ;  these  two  had  no 
beginning,  and  can  have  no  end ;  therefore 
man  had  no  beginning,  and  can  have  no  end, 
the  body  being  a  part  of  matter,  and  the 
soul  being  a  part  of  God. 

[We  cannot  pause  to  discuss  the  distinc- 
tions of  mind  and  soul  or  spirit,  the  relations 
of  body  and  soul,  or  the  relations  of  soul  to 
God  after  the  soul  has  been  granted  a  sepa- 
rate, individual  identity  by  God  ;  that  must  re- 
main for  another  time  ;  though  all  this  may  be 
logically  demonstrated.] 

Before  passing  to  our  tJiird  proposition,  I 
wish  to  apply  the  first  two  to  the  subject  be- 
fore us. 

Now,  if  we  have  established  those  two  pro- 
positions, it  will  be  seen  that  responsibility  for 
the  laws  of  physical  and  spiritual  existence 
rests  not  with  God,  but  in  the  very  necessities 
to  physical  and  spiritual  existence.  Or,  to  be 
plainer,  what  Mr.  Ingersoll  refers  to  as  deadly 


THE  LA  W  OF  OPPOSITES.  6l 

\J 

shrubs  and  vines,  and  ferocious  beasts,  and 
poisonous  reptiles,  and  malarious  swamps,  and 
the  millions  of  other  agents  of  death,  are  not 
chargeable  to  the  malignity  of  a  creator,  but 
to  the  absolute  necessities. 

The  truth  of  this  will  become  only  the  more 
apparent  after  the  consideration  of  our  third 
proposition,  which  was  as  follows : 

The  conditions  of  life  and  death,  pleasure 
and  pain,  etc.,  as  pertaining  to  the  physical, 
and  the  conditions  of  happiness  and  grief,  etc., 
as  pertaining  to  the  spiritual,  are  the  positive 
and  negative  poles,  absolutely  necessary  re- 
spectively to  physical  and  spiritual  existence. 

Now  the  poverty  of  our  language  compels 
me  to  explain  what  I  mean  by  the  positive  and 
negative  poles  —  a  figure  I  have  taken  from 
electrics  —  and  in  the  explanation  I  think  I 
shall  establish  our  proposition. 

I  shall  endeavor  to  be  very  plain  and 
simple,  for  the  plainest,  simplest  language  is 
always  the  strongest  and  most  convincing. 
And  we  may  also  be  very  brief  in  this.  By 
positive  and  negative  poles,  then,  in  the  con- 


64  MEPHISTO-MINOTAURUS. 

nection  I  have  used  them,  as  absolute  neces- 
sities, I  mean  what  geometricians  imply  when 
they  speak  of  two  lines  as  necessary  to  a  paral- 
lel ;  what  Prof.  Cook  implies  when  he  says 
that  there  cannot  be  an  over  without  an 
under,  a  higher  without  a  lower,  an  inner 

•  o 

without  an  outer,  a  hither  without  a  yonder. 
It  is  as  inconceivable  that  pleasure  should 
exist  without  the  possibility  of  pain,  or  that 
happiness  should  exist  without  the  possibility 
of  grief,  as  that  a  parallel  should  exist  without 
the  second  line ;  or  that  you  can  have  an  over 
without  an  under,  a  higher  without  a  lower, 
an  inner  without  an  outer,  a  hither  without  a 
yonder.  Each  takes  its  place  in  the  list  of 
absohtte  necessities.  And  so  we  might  con- 
tinue in  the  realms  of  matter  and  mind, 
throughout  which  we  can  find  nothing  without 
its  opposite.  And  MAN,  compelled  to  move  in 
a  given  direction,  would  simply  be  propelled 
as  an  inanimate.  In  other  words  :  if  it  were 
impossible  for  man  to  move  except  in  the 
straight  line  of  good,  he  would  be,  and  could 

o  o 

be,  no    more    than   the-  tree    that    springs    up 


THE  LOGICAL  SEQUENCE.  65 

from  the  earth  as  a  blade  of  grass,  grows 
to  the  perfection  of  maturity  buds,  blooms 
bears  its  fruit,  and  then  dies,  to  go  back 
to  the  elements. 

Now,  we  may  lay  down  two  broad  principles 
here  as  the   logical    sequence  of  our  former 
propositions ;    and    while    we    need    hold    no 
school  of  physicists  and  no  school  of  philoso- 
phers responsible,  we,  at  the  same  time,  may 
challenge  disproval.     Here  they  are  : 
First.    There  is  not  an  atom  in  the  physical 
universe  which  is  absolute,  i.  e.,  entirely  in- 
dependent of  all  other  atoms. 
Second.  There  is  not  a  condition  in  the  spirit- 
ual universe  which  is  absolute,  i.  e.,  entirely 
independent  of  all  other  conditions. 
It  will  be  observed  that  I  have  not  yet  dis- 
posed of  the  conditions  of  life  and  death  to 
the    physical,  of   our  third  proposition     and 
it  will  be  remembered  that  I  numbered  these 
as  with  the  absolute  necessities.     Let  us  con- 
sider them  : 

From    the   standpoint   of  science,  life    and 
death  are  but  the  processes  of  re-creation  in 


66  ME  PHIS  TO-MIXO  TA  UK  US. 

which  death  is  as  absolutely  necessary  as  the 
first  line  of  a  parallel ;  consequently,  from  a 
scientific  point  of  view,  there  is  no  loss,  the 
new  life  compensating  for  the  old  death. 

This  pertains  to  the  animal,  vegetable,  and 
mineral  kingdoms,  and,  according  to  science, 
has  always  done  so  —  the  law  being  co-existent 
with  the  thing  governed.  The  responsibility, 
therefore,  rests  not  with  God,  but  with  the 
necessities  to  being. 

Besides,  I  challenge  the  possibility  of  a  con- 
ception of  being  other  than  this.  For  that 
would  involve  the  making  of  something  out  of 
nothing,  and,  as  Mr.  Ingersoll  has  pertinently 
remarked,  "  Nothing,  considered  in  the  light  of 
a  raw  material,  is  a  most  decided  failure." 

But  you  will  say  here,  how  do  you  reconcile 
this  with  the  Bible  account  of  creation  ?  I 
answer,  by  the  Bible  itself.  You  will  reply  that 
the  Bible  says:  "In  the  beginning  God  cre- 
ated the  heavens  and  the  earth."  (Now  bear 
in  mind  it  is  you  who  have  opened  the  Bible, 
not  I.)  I  reply,  the  Bible  says  no  such  thing. 
You  contend  that  it  does,  and  show  me  the 


FIRST  CHAPTER  OF  GENESIS.  67 

text  of  a  King  James  translation.     I  then  re 
fer  you  to  the  original,  if  you  are  a  Hebrew 
scholar ;  if  not,    I    commend  you   to   any   He- 
brew scholar   in   whom  you   may   have   confi 
dence.      Ask    him    to    translate    the    Hebrew 
text   for  you   into    simple    English.     He   will 
tell  you   that  the  first  verse  is  very  difficult  to 
translate    accurately   into    our   language,  and 
show    you    the    peculiarities  of  the    Hebrew. 
He  will  tell  you  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  words 
which  most  correctly  embody  the  meaning  are 
as  follows  : 
First  verse  :   In  this  beginning  God  rearranged 

the  heavens  and  the  earth. 
Second  verse  :  For  the  earth  had  been  wrecked 

and  desolated. 

Now  you  may  ask,  Why  was  it  not  trans- 
lated so  in  the  King  James  text?  Probably 
for  the  same  reason  that  they  were  so  in- 
accurate in  many  other  places.  You  know 
that  they  translated  from  the  Greek,  which 
was  itself  a  translation  from  the  Hebrew. 
And  you  will  perhaps  remember  the  experi- 
ment that  was  tried  a  few  years  ago,  of 


68  MEPHIS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

passing  a  simple  English  sentence  through 
half  a  dozen  different  languages,  and  then 
back  into  English.  Its  author  would  have 
never  recognized  it. 

This  that  is  given  here  is  the  correct 
translation,  and  it  is  as  old  as  Polycarp  and 
St.  Augustine. 

But  you  will  say :  Back  of  this  beginning 
there  must  have  been  the  former  earth  and 
other  worlds.  Very  correct !  Matter  has 
always  existed,  and  God  has  always  existed, 
and  as  He  put  this  world  together  from 
already  existing  material,  so  has  He  put 
other  worlds  together. 

The  best  way  is,  I  think,  to  make  it  a 
principle  to  accept  a  fact  wherever  it  may 
come  from  ;  and  if,  like  a  streak  of  lightning, 
it  crashes  into  our  "  metin'-house,"  go  to  work 
to  repair  the  damages,  and  make  things  light- 
ning-proof for  the  future. 

Now  I  do  not  consider  that  I  am  called  upon 
to  believe  anything  simply  because  it  is  in  the 
Bible,  but  because  it  is  true.  It  is  not  true 
merely  because  it  is  in  the  Bible,  but  it  is  in 


BIBLE  AND  SCIENCE  IN  HARMONT.  69 

• 

the  Bible  because  it  is  true ;  and  that  is 
why  there  is  nothing  in  the  Bible  that  is  not 
true. 

By  substituting  this  for  the  King  James 
version,  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  correctly 
understood  will  be  found  to  be  in  entire  har- 
mony with  the  teachings  of  Science,  and  the 
most  accurate  and  wonderful  piece  of  epit- 
omized history  that  can  be  found  in  the 
literature  of  the  world. 

When  Mr.  Ingersoll  proclaims  that  there  is 
an  irrepressible  conflict  between  Science  and 
Christianity,  he  is  but  repeating  a  declara- 
tion that  was  made  years  ago  when  ignorance, 
like  a  pall  of  universal  right,  enveloped  the 
world.  There  is  yet  a  sort  of  conflict  which 
is  kept  up  between  certain  scientists  and  a 
few  ignorant,  though,  no  doubt,  well-meaning 
theologians  ;  but  there  is  no  conflict  between 
Science  and  Christianity,  and  the  day  is  not 
far  distant  when  science  will  be  universally 
recognized,  as  it  is  already  in  the  higher 
schools  of  philosophy  and  advanced  theology, 
as  the  hand-maid  of  Christianity. 


70  Mi:i>iiis-i-o-Mi.\o  r.\ntrs. 

• 
This  is  no  idle  boast,  but  as  sure  as  that 

to  morrow's  dawn  will  supersede  the  night. 

But  now  our  Minotaur  is  ready  for  another 
charge  ;  he  has  partially  recovered  from  his 
recent  defeat,  and  is  preparing  to  renew  the 
attack.  Listen  to  him  : 

"  Here  empires  may  be  overthrown  ;  dynas- 
ties may  be  extinguished  in  blood  ;  millions 
of  slaves  may  toil  'neath  the  fierce  rays  of 
the  sun  and  the  cruel  strokes  of  the  lash ; 
yet  all  is  happiness  in  heaven.  Pestilences 
may  strew  the  earth  with  corpses  of  the 
loved ;  the  survivors  may  bend  above  them 
in  agony,  yet  the  placid  bosom  of  heaven  is 
unruffled.  Children  may  expire  vainly  asking 
for  bread  ;  babes  may  be  devoured  by  ser- 
pents, while  gods  sit  smiling  in  the  clouds. 
The  innocent  may  languish  unto  death  in  ob- 
scurity of  dungeons  ;  brave  men  and  heroic 
women  may  be  changed  to  ashes  at  the 
bigot's  stake,  while  heaven  is  filled  with 
songs  of  joy.  Out  on  the  wild  sea,  in  dark- 
ness and  in  storm,  the  shipwrecked  struggle 
with  the  cruel  waves,  while  angels  play  upon 


THE  INFIDEL  HE  A  YEN.  7  I 

* 

their  golden  harps.  ...  In  heaven  they 
are  too  happy  to  have  sympathy,  too  busy 
singing  to  aid  the  imploring  and  destitute. 
Their  eyes  are  blinded ;  their  ears  are  stop- 
ped, and  their  hearts  are  turned  to  stone  by 
the  infinite  selfishness  of  joy.  .  .  .  The 
smiles  of  the  deities  are  unacquainted  with 
the  tears  of  men.  The  shouts  of  heaven 
drown  the  sobs  of  earth." 

What  there  is  here  of  fact,  so  far  as  the 
laws  of  nature  are  concerned,  I  have  already 
answered  at  some  length  in  the  preceding 
pages ;  what  remains  of  fiction  I  will  now 
notice  briefly. 

It  will  be  observed  that  our  Minotaur  is 
still  so  blinded  by  his  impotent  rage  that  he 
knows  not  his  own.  He  charges  here  through 
the  Infidel  heaven,  paws  up  its  Infidel  streets, 
and  butts  down  its  Infidel  walls ;  makes  war 
upon  the  Infidel  angels,  and  gores  the  Infidel 
god. 

For  the  Christian  heaven  is  a  heaven 
wherein  there  is  more  joy  over  one  that  is 
saved  than  over  ninety  and  nine  that  went 


7  2  MEPHIS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

not  astray.  For  the  Christian  angels  are 
they  that  minister  continually  unto  the  chil- 
dren of  men.  For  the  Christian  God  is  One 
who  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His 
only  begotten  Son  that  whosoever  believeth 
in  Him  should  not  perish  but  have  everlast- 
ing life. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  devotes  the  remainder  of 
his  lecture  to  prophecy,  in  which  he  predicts 
the  downfall  of  the  Christian  system,  and 
supports  his  position  by  arguing  that  as  all 
the  religions  of  the  barbarous  ages  have 
fallen  into  ruin,  so  must  the  religion  of  the 
Christian  age. 

Now,  this  may  be  good  enough  Infidel 
logic,  but  it  is  not  the  logic  of  common 
sense,  not  even  of  very  common  sense. . 

Because  systems  founded  in  error  and  ig- 
norance have  failed,  therefore,  a  system  found- 
ed in  truth  and  knowledge  must  fail  ?  Surely, 
the  Mephisto  part  has  retired ;  this  is  too 
stupid  to  be  cunning;  it  is  entirely  Mino- 
taurian. 

Oh,  massive-fronted  Ingersoll !     Verily,  and 


WANTED,  A  NEW  MIRACLE  !  7$ 

of  a  truth,  great  is  Reason,  and  great  is  Inger- 
soll,  her  prophet !     Selah  ! 

We  come  now  to  the  peroration.  But  His 
Pseudolency  makes  an  entire  new  departure 
in  the  way  of  rhetorical  construction.  He 
puts  his  peroration  right  in  the  middle  of 
his  discourse,  and  so  we  must  go  back  to 
consider  it.  Of  course  he  has  both  the  legal 
and  constitutional  right,  if  he  chooses,  to  do 
so.  I  simply  make  the  allusion  as  a  sort  of 
landmark  in  my  survey. 

Here  is  the  passage  referred  to  : 
"  The  church  wishes  us  to  believe.  Let  the 
church,  or  one  of  its  intellectual  saints,  per- 
form a  miracle,  and  we  will  believe.  .  .  . 
We  have  had  talk  enough.  We  have  listened 
to  all  the  drowsy,  idealess,  vapid  sermons  that 
we  wish  to  hear.  We  have  read  your  Bible 
and  the  works  of  your  best  minds;  We  have 
heard  your  prayers,  your  solemn  groans,  and 
your  reverential  amens.  All  these  amount 
to  less  than  nothing.  We  want  one  fact ; 
we  beg  at  the  doors  of  your  churches  for 
just  one  little  fact.  We  pass  our  hats  along 


74  MEPHIS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

your  pews  and  under  your  pulpits,  and  im- 
plore you  for  just  one  fact.  We  know  all 
about  your  mouldy  wonders  and  your  stale 
miracles.  We  want  a  this  year's  fact.  We 
want  only  one.  Give  us  one  fact  for  charity." 

Now,  notwithstanding  the  ludicrous  spec- 
tacle of  an  Infidel  calling  for  a  fact,  while  the 
entire  system  of  infidelity  is  founded  in 
negation,  still,  as  "  it  is  the  breathing  time  of 
day  with  me,"  I  will  endeavor  to  satisfy  His 
Pseudolency,  and  give  him  that  for  which  he 
so  melodramatically  pleads. 

As  I  before  remarked,  this  perorative  appeal 
was  made  in  the  middle  of  his  lecture,  before 
he  had  lashed  himself  into  such  a  fury,  when 
the  Minotaur  part  took  entire  control, —  so 
that  it  is  the  Mephisto  part  that  suggests  this 
—it  is  not  without  cunning. 

No  doubt  His  Pseudolency  communed  with 
himself  something  after  this  fashion  :  Now 
facts  are  as  old  as  creation  itself.  I  will  call 
for  a  new  fact  which  is  at  once  impossible. 
Again,  the  Christian  God  has  expressly  for- 
bidden that  His  children  should  test  Him,  for 


THE  WANT  SUPPLIED.  75 

the  test's  sake.  I  will,  therefore,  demand  of 
them  a  miracle.  They  can  comply  with 
neither  and  I  shall  have  made  my  point. 

So  this  appeal  is  not  altogether  without 
subtlety,  and  Mr.  Ingersoll,  no  doubt,  felt  that 
it  was  profoundly  cunning.  Yet,  I  think,  in  the 
hypothesis  we  have  just  offered  of  the  cerebral 
activity  of  its  author,  he  is  fully  answered. 

But  I  shall,  nevertheless,  endeavor  to  sup- 
ply what  seems  so  necessary  to  our  hero's  hap- 
piness. And,  since  a  new  fact  must  be  attend- 
ed with  a  miracle,  I  shall  offer  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  both  at  the  same  time.  Indeed 
the  nineteenth  century  fact  and  miracle  that  I 
am  about  to  refer  to,  form  a  sort  of  mystic 
dualty  —  a  one  in  two  and  two  in  one,  as  it 
were.  And  here  it  is  :  His  Pseudolency  him- 
self —  Mephisto-Minotaurus. 

That  the  continued  existence  of  this  man  is 
%.fact,  no  one  will  deny.  That  the  continua- 
tion of  that  existence  is  the  result  of  nothing 
less  than  a  miracle,  I  will  now  demonstrate 
scientifically,  by  special  method. 


~> 


7tpdyfj.a.Tos. 
Give  me  leave  to  be  merry  on  a  merry  subject. 


76  MEPHfS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

If  we  will  turn,  in  the  French  Dictionaire 
de  Medicine,  to  the  article  entitled  Combustion 
hiimaine,  and  in  Dr.  Apjon's  Cyclopedia  of 
Practical  Medicine,  to  the  article  entitled  Spon- 
taneous human  combustion,  we  can  at  once  sat- 
isfy ourselves  that  the  human  body  may  under- 
go such  excesses  that,  in  process  of  time,  de- 
composition will  begin  of  a  peculiar  character, 
and  to  such  an  extent  as  to  produce  spon- 
taneous combustion,  and  this,  too,  in  the  midst 
of  life. 

Now,  I  desire  to  make  no  allusion  here  to 
His  Pseudolency's  corporeal  part  —  I  am  not 
his  physician  and  could  not,  therefore,  speak 
with  accuracy  —  but  to  his  spiritual  part  — his 
moral  and  mental  being. 

It  is  a  principle  in  science  that  wherever 
there  is  a  close  affinity  between  matter  and 
mind,  the  laws  pertaining  to  each  bear  an  in- 
timate sympathy.  This  being  the  case,  and 
our  scientists  having  already  discovered  a  law 
of  spontaneous  human  combustion,  it  only 
remains  a  matter  of  time  until  they  shall  dis- 
cover a  law  of  spontaneous  mental  and  moral 


ANTICIPATING  THE  SCIENTISTS.  77 

combustion.  I  do  not  mean  that  there  may 
be  a  total  destruction  of  the  moral  and  mental 
faculties,  but  a  sort  of  disintegration,  as  it 
were,  in  which  the  impure  parts  will  destroy 
themselves. —  what  little  there  is  of  any  value 
taking  its  flight  to  the  source  from  whence 
it  came. 

We  should  not  be  compelled,  in  a  case  of 
emergency  of  this  kind,  to  await  the  slow,  plod- 
ding progress  of  the  scientists,  when  so  plain 
a  deduction  as  this  is  before  us,  and  it  is  just 
as  well  right  here,  that  we  anticipate  the  con- 
clusion to  which  they  must  inevitably  come 
at  last. 

It  will  readily  be  seen,  then,  that  all  that 
keeps  the  moral  and  mental  parts  of  His  Pseu- 
dolency  from  spontaneous  combustion  is  a 
continual  working  miracle. 

For,  as  Mr.  Carlyle  said  of  him  before  he 
was  born,  "  Such  a  combination  of  logical  life 
with  moral  death,  so  universal  a  denier,  both 
in  head  and  heart,  is  undoubtedly  an  emissary 
of  the  Primeval  Nothing,"  and  we  may  add, 
must  be  for  some  wise  and  inscrutable  purpose 


78  MRP  JUS  TO-MTNO  TA  UR  UK. 

miraculously  permitted  an  existence  from  day 
to  day,  since  his  continued  intellectual  life  is 
in  violation  of  every  law  in  the  reach  of  the 
scientists. 

Such  an  amalgamation  of  strength  and  stu- 
pidity, sense  and  sophistry,  axiom  and  absurd- 
ity, intelligence  and  idiocy,  acumen  and  arro- 
gance, genius  and  drivel,  reason  and  ridicu- 
lousness, and  then,  notwithstanding  his  royal 
good-fellowship,  such  a  compound  of  unblush- 
ing pretension,  swaggering  insolence,  and  blas- 
phemous sacrilege,  as  is  evinced  in  the  lecture 
before  us ;  in  a  word,  such  a  mass  of  intellect- 
ual contradictions  and  moral  corruption  is  an 
anomaly  in  the  universe,  beyond  the  pales  of 
law,  and  can  only  be  kept  together — -saved 
from  spontaneous  combustion — by  the  direct, 
daily,  hourly  interposition  of  miraculous 
power. 

His  Pseudolency  has,  therefore,  "  a  this 
year's  fact,"  a  walking,  living,  present  evi- 
dence of  "  miracle."  Requiescat  in  pace  ! 

Why  he  is  thus  permitted,  were  a  difficult 
problem  ;  I  cannot  solve  it,  unless  the  solu- 


A   TALK  TO  OURSELVES. 


79 


tion  be  that  it  is  for  a  similar  purpose  to 
that  for  which  we  put  a  light-house  on  a 
dangerous  coast ;  that  he  is  permitted  to 
warn  others  of  that  moral  and  mental  de- 
struction that  lurks  beneath  the  waves  of 
Infidelity. 

I  have  endeavored  to  give  a  faithful  review 
of  every  intended  point  in  the  lecture  of  "  the 
gods,"  and  this  is  the  epitome  of  Mr.  Inger- 
soll's  philosophy. 

If  anything  has  been  omitted  it  is  because 
it  was  too  obscure  for  my  comprehension.  I 
have  endeavored  to  say  nothing  to  excite 
your  prejudice,  or  to  take  advantage  of  the 
prejudice  already  existing  against  Infidels.  I 
have  sought  to  make  an  honorable  fight  of  it, 
and  if  I  may  have  used  a  little  Greek-fire  to 
meet  the  poisoned  arrows  of  the  enemy,  I 
trust  that  the  exigencies  of  war  will  justify 
me. 

And  now  let  us  have  a  little  talk  to  our- 
selves. 

It  is  a  sad  truth  that  many  professed  Chris- 
tians come  very  far  from  being  Christians. 


8o  ME  PHIS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

Do  you  think  that  if  every  professed  follower 
of  Christ  had  been,  indeed,  a  true  and  faith- 
ful follower  of  Christ,  such  a  lecture  as  the 
one  we  have  just  reviewed  would  have  ever 
been  written  ? 

Now,  the  Infidels  watch  the  life  of  Chris- 
tians, and  they  say,  that's  Christianity;  and 
they  listen  to  our  ministers,  and  say,  that's 
Christian  doctrine ;  and  they  .are  often  com- 
pelled to  add :  We  don't  want  to  emulate 
that  kind  of  life,  and  it  is  impossible  to  be- 
lieve that  kind  of  doctrine. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  makes  some  telling  hits  on 
many  of  our  practices  and  much  of  our 
preaching,  and  there  is  no  use  of  shutting 
our  eyes  to  the  fact,  and  trying  to  drive 
away  the  remembrance  by  singing  psalms. 

/  defy  Infidelity  to  find  a  single  fault  in 
the  teachings  of  Christ!  They  have  been 
trying  to  do  so  for  two  thousand  years  and 
have  not  succeeded.  It  is  in  the  practices 
and  preaching  of  those  who  claim  to  be  Chris- 
tians that  they  find  the  fault. 

If  there  were  nothing  given  to  the  Infidels 


THE  CHRISTIAN  WARFARE.  gl 

to  believe  but  the  pure  word  of  Christ,  there 
would  soon  be  no  Infidels  in  the  world. 

Now,  the  great  trouble  with  many  of  our 
ministers  is  that  the  moment  they  take  up  a 
subject  of  theology,  they  lay  down  the  practi- 
cal common-sense  that  governs  them  in  every- 
day life,  and  the  result  is,  their  philosophy 
flies  off  in  a  thousand  tangents.  And  they 
call  this  orthodoxy,  and  the  Infidels  say  they 
don't  want  that  sort  of  orthodoxy. 

And  another  trouble  is,  that  when  they  be- 
come identified  with  some  particular  sect, 
they  think  they  ought  to  cling  to  the  ancient 
landmarks,  no  matter  how  inconsistent  they 
may  be,  with  the  tenacity  of  life  itself.  Sup- 
pose our  fathers  had  acted  upon  the  same 
principle  ! 

The  Christian  warfare  will  always  be  at- 
tended with  difficulties  so  long  as  we  furnish 
the  cudgels  for  Infidels  to  batter  us  over  the 
heads  with. 

I  can  recognize  no  excuse  for  poor  preach- 
ing. Oh,  what  a  theme  is  Christianity  *  What 
has  it  not  done  for  this  world  ? 


8  2  MEPlirS  TO-MINO  TA  UK  US. 

It  found  anarchy  and  barbarism  ;  it  has  be- 
stowed order  and  enlightenment. 

It  found  groveling  ignorance  and  supersti- 
tion ;  it  has  bestowed  knowledge  and  philos- 
ophy. 

It  found  man  a  vassal  and  slave;  it  has 
lifted  him  to  a  peerage  with  gods ! 

It  found  woman  a  menial  and  concubine ; 
it  has  lifted  her  to  the  sphere  of  angels  ! 

Do  you  point  me  to  the  achievements  of 
the  nations  before  Christ ;  their  wondrous 
proficiency  in  the  arts  and  sciences  ? 

I  will  point  you  to  the  wreck  and  ruin  of 
it  all.  Do  you  ask  why  ?  Time  has  written 
the  answer. 

Christianity  found  the  human  race  unable 
to  rise  from  the  miry  clay,  staggering  and 
blinded  and  bewildered,  through  the  horror- 
strewn  gorges  of  Polytheism ;  through  the 
caverns  of  Doubt  and  Denial ;  through  the 
uriillumined  defiles  of  a  terrible  Dread,  grop- 
ing, groping  in  the  deep,  dark  valley,  sur- 
rounded by  the  ghastly  specters  of  the  skel- 
etoned past,  while  Death,  brooding  like  a 


THE  MARCH  OF  ENLIGHTENMENT.  83 

monster  vampire  over  the  world,  cast  every- 
where its  terrible  shadow  ! 

But  when  the  chorus  rang  out  on  the  world 
-"  Peace  !  peace  on  earth,  good  will  to  men," 
our  poor  humanity  took  heart. 

Slowly  and  steadily  we  have  marched 
through  all  the  centuries ;  slowly  but  surely, 
step  by  step,  mounting  the  stair  of  Christ's 
enlightenment. 

And  now,  where  once  the  trackless  ocean 
rolled,  and  unknown  seas  kissed  back  the  sun, 
commerce  sits  smiling  in  a  million  sails  ! 

And  now,  where  once  was  howling  wilder- 
ness and  waste,  a  million  fields  glow  with  the 
golden  grain  !  a  million  homes  crown  life  with 
happiness  ! 

And  now,  where  once  were  unknown  haunts 
of  savage  beasts,  railroads,  the  swift  arteries 
of  trade,  like  a  broad  net-work  spread,  and  the 
chained  lightnings,  girt  about  the  globe,  serve 
everywhere  men's  purposes !  The,  land  is 
decked  with  cities,  and  the  land  is  jeweled 
over  with  churches  and  with  schools  ! 

Nay,  we    have  mounted  far  beyond    these 


84  MEPHIS TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

scenes  !     Behold  !  where  gleam  the  countless 
stars,  there  stretch   the   highways  of  all-con •- 
quering  science  ! 

And  now,  where  once  were  unknown  heights, 
and  depths  profound,  are  paths  wherein  we 
stroll  as  erstwhile  through  our  gardens  ! 

Where  once  were  grotesque  shapes  and 
heathen  deities,  now,  through  the  illimitable 
space,  roll  worlds  innumerable !  And  these 
we  measure,  weigh  and  analyze,  delve  in  their 
mines,  explore  their  mountains  and  plains, 
bask  in  the  light  of  their  resplendent  suns, 
and  dally  with  their  gorgeous,  tinted  beams  ! 

And  soon  our  souls  shall  listen  to  their 
sweet,  celestial  harmonies  ! 

For  in  the  center  of  this  universe  is  throned 
our  God,  whence  time,  as  a  gentle  effluence,  is 
shed  through  all  the  worlds  ! 

'Twas  He  who  sent  to  us  His  Son-,  that  He 
might  lift  us  up  unto  Himself.  And  He  has 
sworn, even  by  Himself,  since  He  could  by  no 
greater  swear,  with  His  great  arm  uplifted, 
that  He  will  do  it !  Hie  et  ubique !  Yes, 
here  and  everywhere  !  Here,  on  this  beautiful 


THE  LAUGHTER  OF  THE  SOUL.       85 

bright  earth,  or  in  the  Pleiades  !  Here,  with 
the  loved  ones  of  our  hearts,  or  there,  where 
they  shall  come  to  us ! 

Stand  out,  oh  Infidel,  beneath  the  stars ! 
Look  up  !  and  when  your  soul  throbs  wildly 
to  be  free, —  throbs  till  your  heart  leaps  madly 
in  your  breast, —  throbs  till  your  brain  reels, 
and  your  whole  being  quakes, —  stifle  all 
thought, — quell  every  impulse, — confront  your 
soul, —  declare  to  it  there  is  no  God, —  then 
hear  its  swift,  wild  screaming  laughter, — 
endure  its  loathing,  mocking,  terrible  recoil 
as  it  shall  answer  back,  "  Thou  Fool !  " 

To  your  knees,  and  crawl  for  pardon  !  For 
I  tell  thee  now,  thou  rash  destroyer  of  thy 
soul's  dear  peace,  unless  thou  shalt  its  quick 
forgiveness  gain,  'twill  hunt  thee  down  ! 

With  sting  of  thousand  scorpions  thy  con- 
science will  so  lash  thee  through  the  world, 
thou  shalt  seek  refuge  in  the  very  jaws  of 
death !  Aye,  and  beyond  the  tomb  ;  for  there, 
all  dwarfed  and  maimed,  it  shall  confront 
thee !  Even  as  thou  hast  dwarfed  and 
maimed  it  here,  'twill  meet  thee  there,-  con- 


86  MEPHIS  TO-MINO  TA  UR  US. 

front  thee  face  to  face !  Thou  shalt  stand 
self-accused,  self-judged,  and  go  self-haunted 
through  eternity ! 

For  who   can   escape   the   presence   of   his 
soul  ? 


THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 


The  man  who  in  this  life  can  keep  the  whiteness  of  his  soul 
is  not  likely  to  lose  it  in  any  other. 

ALEXANDER  SMITH. 

Truth  came  once  into  the  world  with  her  Divine  Master, 
and  was  a  perfect  shape,  most  glorious  to  look  on ;  but  when 
He  ascended,  and  His  Apostles  after  him  were  laid  asleep,  then 
straight  arose  a  wicked  race  of  deceivers,  who,  as  the  story  goes 
of  the  Egyptian  Typhon  with  his  conspirators,  how  they  dealt 
with  the  good  Osiris,  took  the  virgin  Truth,  hewed  her  lovely 
form  into  a  thousand  pieces,  and  scattered  them  to  the  four 
winds.  .From  that  time  ever  since,  the  sad  friends  of  Truth, 
such  as  durst  appear,  imitating  the  careful  search  that  Isis 
made  for  the  mangled  body  of  Osiris,  went  up  and  down 
gathering  up  limb  by  limb  still  as  they  could  find  them.  We 
have  not  yet  found  them  all,  nor  ever  shall  do,  till  her  Master's 
second  coming:  He  shall  bring  together  every  joint  and  mem- 
ber, and  shall  mould  them  into  an  immortal  feature  of  Loveli- 
ness and  Perfection. 

MILTON. 


THE  ABSOLUTE   NECESSITIES. 


IT  shall  be  my  endeavor  in  the  present  pa- 
per to  confine  what  shall  be  offered  to  very 
simple,  plain,  old-fashioned,  hard-fisted  facts, 
and  their  logical  deductions.  And  if,  in  doing 
so,  we  shall  let  a  little  light  into  the  labyrinth- 
ine mysteries  of  some  of  the  popular  the- 
ologies, and,  by  that  light,  discover  that  those 
dark  passages  rhay,  after  all,  be  explored,  and 
even  by  very  ordinary  people  like  ourselves, 
let  us  evermore  hold  in  higher  regard  those 
simple  truths  that  are  in  the  reach  of  all,  though 
it  should  be  at  the  expense  of  that  reverence 
which  we  may  have  hitherto  borne  for  the  in- 
fallibility of  some  of  our  teachers. 

And  now  let  us  try  to  divest  ourselves  of  all 
preconceived  ideas  that  may  have  become  a 
part  of  our  mental  being  through  early  train- 
ing or*past  associations, —  all  prejudices,  so  to 
speak,  that  may  enswathe  us,  and  upon  truths 


9o 


THE  A  fiSOL  I ' '!']•:  .\1.(  'ESSITIES. 


that  we  know  to  be  truths — plain,  practicable, 
common-sense   principles  of  every-day  life  — 
consider    the    grave    question    before    us,  for 
"  to  this  complexion  must  we  come  at  last'.' 

Were  we  to  seek  for  the  cause  of  the  un- 
fortunate tendency  of  the  human  mind,  partic- 
ularly as  applied  to  Christians,  to  veil  every- 
thing in  mystery,  we  should,  no  doubt,  find  it 
very  largely  attributable  to  a  misconstruction 
of  the  idea  that  lingers  around  those  words 
of  Holy  Writ,  "  Great  are  the  mysteries  of 
godliness."  The  inspired  writer  might  have 
added,  "  Great  are  the  mysteries  of  germinal 
life,"  but  it  is,  no  doubt,  well  he  did  not  do  so, 
else  who  knows  but  that  our  agriculturists 
would  now  be  exhausting  themselves  in  an  ef- 
fort to  raise  corn  in  the  hot  sands  of  Arabia, 
or  on  the  snow-capped  summits  of  the  Alps. 

Because  there  are  great  mysteries  connected 
with  the  raising  of  corn,  it  does  not  follow  that 
there  are  not  many  simple,  practical  truths 
leading  to  the  raising  of  corn.  And  because 
there  are  great  mysteries  connected  with  god- 
liness, it  does  not  follow  that  there  are  not 


TRUTHS   WITHIN  THE  REACH  OF  ALL.        gi 

many  simple,  practical  truths  leading  to  god- 
liness. Nor  does  it  follow  that  because  there 
must  forever  remain  many  unsolved  problems 
in  eternity,  that  there  are  not  many  simple, 
practical  truths  in  connection  with  that  future 
state  that  are  within  the  reach  of  every  rational 
mind. 

Now,  for  some  little  time  let  us  confine  our 
arguments  to  limits  that  will  not  touch  the 
Christian  system,  or  the  relationship  of  Christ 
to  humanity.  Let  us  advance  to  the  consider- 
ation of  that  thought,  that  sublime  climax  of 
philosophy,  by  gradual  approach,  each  step  of 
which  shall  be  as  sure  as  the  very  foundation 
of  science.  We  should  do  this  for  two  rea- 
sons : 

First.  That  we  may  throw  some  light  upon 
that  part  of  our  question  which  seems  to  per- 
plex some  of  our  theologians,  and  that  so 
greatly  disturbed  Mr.  Beecher :  the  condition 
of  the  millions  who  lived  and  died  before  the 
Christian  era. 

Second.  That  what  we  shall  offer  may  reach 
those  who  do  not  accept  Christ. 


92  THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

Before  taking  up  our  subject  from  a  purely 
scientific  standpoint,  let  us  seek  to  reduce  it 
to  practical  proportions,  and  consider  it  from 
a  practical  standpoint  by  making  a  personal 
application  of  it. 

We  will  for  the  present  use  the  words, 
Heaven,  Hell,  Saved  and  Lost,  in  their  popu- 
lar significance,  reserving  the  privilege  of  sup- 
plying what  we  conceive  to  be  their  proper 
definitions  after  a  while. 

I  desire  now  to  address  the  one  reader 
whose  eye  may  be  resting  upon  this  page,  for 
it  is  not  probable  that  there  is  a  single  indi- 
vidual on  the  habitable  globe  but  who  feels 
that  by  some  means  he  or  she  will  be  saved. 
Indeed  it  is  hardly  possible  that  there  could 
be  found  a  single  instance  of  one  so  devoid 
of  hope  as  to  believe  that  he  would  be  lost— 
that  would  be  despair.  Though  unable  to 
give  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  within,  all 
feel  that,  by  some  means,  a  way  will  be  pro- 
vided through  which  they  will  be  led  to  a  final 
state  of  happiness. 

It  is  not  proposed,  at  this  point,  to  discuss 


WHAT  SORT  OF  HEA  YEN.  93 

any  doctrines  as  to  qualifications  for,  or  to  dic- 
tate any  peculiar  individual  conception  of, 
heaven.  But  accepting,  in  order  to  pursue 
the  argument,  any  rational  conception  you 
may  have  of  heaven,  and  accepting  the  idea 
of  that  unbounded  goodness  of  God  which 
presupposes  that  He  would  draw  all  men  unto 
Himself, —  all  this  conceded,  is  your  case  a 
possible  one  ?  What  sort  of  a  heaven  would 
be  required  to  make  you  happy  ?  You  can- 
not conceive  of  heaven  as  other  than  a  state 
of  purity  of  soul,  where  only  the  highest,  holi- 
est aspirations  may  exist,  no  matter  what 
other  peculiarities  you  may  ally  to  it, —  would 
such  surroundings  make  you  happy  ?  Were 
you  at  once  translated  from  your  present 
abode  into  the  presence  of  God  and  His 
holy  angels,  could  you  even  endure  it  ? 

What  sort  of  a  heaven  would  it  take  to 
satisfy  that  man  whose  soul  only  knows  the 
greed  of  gain  ? 

What  sort  of  a  heaven  would  it  be  wherein 
one  could  feel  at  home  whose  chief  delight  is 
in  telling  or  listening  to  obscene  jests  ? 


94  Tlir-  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

What  sort  of  a  heaven  would  be  required 
for  one  whose  life  is  given  to  the  continual 
gratification  of  lust  ? 

You  will  say,  at  once,  that  no  one  embraced 
in  these  extreme  cases  is  a  fit  subject  for 
the  presence  of  God.  And  a  question  arises : 
What  sort  of  a  presence  is  he  fitted  for  ? 

How  a  man  can  hope  for  even  respectable 
existence  in  eternity  who  allows  all  manner  of 
unworthy  thoughts  to  take  possession  of  his 
being ;  who  permits  impurity,  with  its  loath- 
some associates,  to  hold  a  continual  high  car- 
nival in  his  soul,  is  certainly  a  mystery. 

But  there  are  those  who  believe  in  a  sort  of 
purgatorial  repair  shop,  to  work  souls  over. 
I  do  not  refer  to  the  Roman  Catholics,  who 
have  reduced  the  idea  of  Purgatory  to  some- 
thing less  than  a  science,  but  to  those  who 
have  a  feeling  that  there  will  be  some  kind  of 
purifying  process  between  death  and  eternity. 
We  will  be  as  generous  to  these  as  we  were 
to  the  others  by  conceding  their  premise  as 
a  starting-point.  It  will,  then,  be  admitted, 
in  return,  that  there  are  souls  so  utterly  de- 


LOSS  OF  1DENTITT  IS  .ANNIHILATION. 


95 


praved,  whom  to  fit  for  any  rational  view  of 
heaven  would  require  an  entire  destruction 
of  identity.  Would  not  this  be  equivalent  to 
annihilation?  If,  to  fit  you  for  God's  pres- 
ence, it  becomes  necessary  to  make  an  en- 
tirely new  being,  it  would  not  be  you  who 
would  enjoy  the  heaven,  but  another  —  the 
one  newly  created. 

Well,  if  this  is  true  in  an  entire  destruction 
of  identity,  it  must  still  remain  true  in  a  par- 
tial destruction  of  identity  ;  for  since  entire 
destruction  of  identity  would  be  equivalent 
to  annihilation,  partial  destruction  of  identity 
would  be  equivalent  to  partial  annihilation, 
which  is  one  of  the  impossibilities. 

Let  us  see  if  this  cannot  be  made  plainer. 

Suppose  that,  in  disobedience  to  physical 
law,  I  should  thrust  my  arm  under  the  wheels 
of  a  railway  engine  while  it  is  in  motion,  my 
arm  would  be  crushed ;  suppose  a  surgeon, 
to  save  the  rest  of  my  body,  should  cut  the 
arm  off;  suppose  I  should  supply  its  place 
with  a  cork  arm  ;  I  should  not  then  be  the 
same  man  physically,  but  something  more 


96  THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

than  three-fourths  of  my  original  self.  Sup- 
pose, then,  I  should  lose  a  leg  in  a  similar 
way,  and  I  should  supply  its  place  in  a  like 
manner ;  I  should  then  be  a  little  more  than 
half  of  my  former  self,  physically.  Where 
would  the  parts  be  that  were  cut  away  ?  De- 
stroyed ?  No  ;  but  returned  to  the  elements 
whence  they  came  originally,  for  they  are 
indestructible. 

Suppose  that  this  process  should  go  on ; 
you  can  see  that  I  should  be  all  cork,  or  an 
entirely  new  physical  being. 

Well,  after  the  process  was  over,  which 
would  be  the  man  with  which  we  started  ? 
The  cork,  or  those  parts  that  had  returned 
to  the  elements  ? 

Now  the  purgatorial  repair  shop  theory  is 
founded  upon  an  idea  that  the  soul  may  be 
worked  over  until  it  shall  be  fitted  for  heaven. 
Granting  the  premise  and  conclusion,  I  should 
like  to  know  what  becomes  of  the  parts  that 
are  cut  away.  Remember  they  are  indestruc- 
tible. And  if  a  soul  quit  this  life  all  dwarfed 
to  the  proportions  of  the  hideous  deformity 


A   THOUGHT  FROM  NATURE.  97 

of  sin,  by  what  process  could  it  be  developed 
into  an  acceptable  guest  at  the  court  of  angels 
except  by  cutting  away  the  deformed  parts  so 
as  to  have  purity  to  build  upon  ? 

Let  us  see  if  this  part  of  the  issue  may  not 
be  met  by  pure,  scientific  method,  confining 
ourselves  to  the  simplest  possible  thoughts 
and  language,  and  the  purest  metaphysics. 

We  will  consider  a  thought  from  the  ma- 
terial world,  the  world  of  matter,  and  one  that 
we  may  demonstrate  without  the  aid  of  the 
scientists  or  theologians.  Indeed,  we  shall  be 
quite  as  well  off  without  the  assistance  of 
either  of  these  in  this,  for  the  former  might 
lose  us  in  the  labyrinthine  depths  of  their 
philosophies,  and  the  latter  —  well,  they  are  in 
a  very  unsteady  state  of  mind  just  at  present. 

Take  a  piece  of  polished  marble,  but-scratch 
it  with  a  needle  and  you  will  have  affected  it 
forever.  All  the  ages  of  time  to  come,  all  the 
cycles  of  eternity,  cannot  ^indo  what  you  have 
done. 

True,  the  scratch  may  be  cut  away,  and  the 

surface  of  the  stone  may  be  polished   again 
5 


98  THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

until  it  shall  again  become  beautiful,  but  it  is 
at  the  cost  of  material !  The  stone  can  never 
be  restored  to  its  original  proportions.  And 
just  in  proportion  as  that  piece  of  marble  is 
affected,  whether  by  the  scratch  of  a  needle, 
the  chisel  of  the  sculptor,  or  the  upheaval  of 
a  volcano,  just  to  that  degree  will  the  effect 
that  is  wrought  upon  it  attend  it  through  "  the 
wreck  of  matter  and  the  crush  of  worlds." 

Now,  I  hold  that  a  sin,  absolute,  however 
small,  makes  an  impress  on  the  soul  that  is 
eternal  in  its  consequences. 

It  may  be  cut  away,  through  forgiveness, 
and  the  soul  may  be  perfected  by  after-life, 
but  there  is  a  loss  that  may  never  be  re- 
covered. And  I  think  this  is  incontrovertible. 
Why?  Because  there  are  two  things  which 
no  one  will  deny,  and  which  no  one  can  deny ; 
and  those  two  things  are  : 
First.  No  one  will  deny,  or  can  deny,  that  a 

life  of  continual  sin  dwarfs  the  soul    until 

its  possibilities  in  the  future  state  must  be 

greatly  limited. 
Second.  No  one  will  deny,  or  can  deny,  that 


THE  J.OGfCAL  DEDUCTION.  99 

this  comes  not  in  the  continuation,  for  that 
is  without  quality,  but  in  the  sin.  ^  By  con- 
tinuation comes  that  enormity  of  proportion 
which  makes  the  effect  possible  to  our  per- 
ception—  the  sin  of  a  moment  being  the 
same  in   its  effect  upon  the  soul  with  the 
difference  only  of  degree ;  and  just  in  pro- 
portion as  a  soul  is  dwarfed  by  sin  in  this 
life,  just  to  that  degree  are  its  possibilities 
limited  in  the  life  to  come. 
(A  stain  or  soil  upon  the  marble,  to  con- 
tinue the  figure,  may  be  washed  away  without 
impairing  the  proportions  of  the  stone,  and 
there  are  some  offenses  ofttimes  reckoned  sins 
because  of  their  sinful  nature,  which  but  stain 
or  soil  the  soul,  and  of  these  may  the  soul  be 
cleansed.) 

That  the  future  existence  of  the  soul  will  be 
surrounded  by  scenes  subject  to  conditions 
and  capable  of  possibilities  immeasurably  be- 
yond its  present  highest  conceptions,  is,  to 
my  mind,  as  certain  as  that  the  infinite  is  be- 
yond the  finite  ;  but  that  it  will  be  in  the  precise 
line,  or  direction,  of  its  aspirations  here,  seems 


IOO  THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

to  me  necessary  to  the  deduction,  if  it  remain 
logical. 

Now,  I  desire  to  call  your  attention  to  the 
following  universally  accepted  truth  : 

There  are  but  two  states  of  existence  —  the 
here  and  the  hereafter,  of  time  and  eternity. 
And  I  think  that  we  have  demonstrated  that 
just  as  we  quit  this  life  we  shall  begin  the  next. 
I  say  I  think  we  have  demonstrated  this  to  be 
one  of  the  absolute  necessities,  for  any  con- 
clusion different  from  this  must  be  upon  the 
theory  of  annihilation,  which  is  one  of  the  im- 
possibilities. 

There  is  another  conclusion  in  connection 
with  the  future  state  that  follows  from  the 
foregoing  arrangement  of  very  simple  truths, 
it  is  this:  There  are  grades  or  degrees  in  the 
future  state.  Besides,  this  is  clearly  taught  in 
the  Bible,  and  is,  I  believe,  almost  universally 
acknowledged.  Now,  just  one  item  more, 
right  here :  Nothing  can  be  surer  than  that 
where  there  is  no  law  there  can  be  no  trans- 
gression. 

The  nations,  therefore,  that  lived  before  the 


BEECHER-MA  NIA .  I O I 

coming  of  Christ  could  4iot  be  amenable  to 
the  law  of  Christ  which  was  made  by  Christ, 
and  of  necessity,  after  His  coming. 

It  will  require  no  very  great  amount  of 
mental  acumen  to  see,  therefore,  that  the  in- 
habitants of  the  world,  prior  to  the  Christian 
era,  were  only  subject  to  the  conditions  we 
have  already  mentioned,  i.  e.,  they  began  the 
new  life  in  eternity  at  the  precise  point  that 
they  ended  the  old,  on  earth,  save  that  there 
possibilities  became  infinite^  while  here  they 
were  finite. 

How  Mr.  Beecher  could  become  so  greatly 
excited,  as  will  appear  from  the  quotation  we 
will  give  here,  over  a  question  that  is  so  en- 
tirely beyond  all  rational  controversy  is,  in- 
deed, remarkable  to  an  extent  that  becomes 
incomprehensible  to  me,  upon  any  hypothesis 
that  would  be  creditable  to  a  master. 

Surely  there  has  been  nothing  very  pro- 
found in  the  simple  thoughts  we  have  offered 
so  far,  and  yet,  had  they  been  comprehended 
in  their  simplicity  by  Mr.  Beecher,  he  could 
have  lifted  the  veil  from  the  great  mystery, 


IO2  THE  A /ISO  LUTE  NECESSITIES. 

the  very  contemplation  of  which  almost  de- 
throned his  reason,  and  threw  him  into  such 
paroxysms  of  rhetorical  inaccuracy. 

It  becomes  necessary  to  quote  him  here, 
that  we  may  not  be  misunderstood.  We  shall 
take  occasion  to  refer  to  a  passage  that  comes 
before  this,  after  a  while ;  why  I  do  not  take 
them  as  they  come  is  because  Mr.  Beecher's 
erraticisms  are  secondary  considerations  to  the 
argument.  I  am  trying  to  solve  the  problem 
which  is  popularly  denominated  Heaven  and 
Hell,  or  the  future  state,  simply  disposing 
of  Beecher-mania  as  a  sort  of  unknown 
quantity  wherever  it  presents  itself. 

In  quoting  from  Mr.  Beecher  we  are  but 
quoting  the  words  of  a  large  element  of  relig- 
ious and  irreligious  society,  and  the  thoughts 
they  suggest  are,  therefore,  by  no  means 
ephemeral. 

Referring  to  the  nations  before  the  coming 
of  Christ,  he  says  : 

"If  now  you  tell  me  that  this  great  mass  of 
men,  because  they  had  not  the  knowledge  of 
God,  went  to  heaven,  I  say  the  inroad  of  such 


MR.  BEECH ER  VERSUS  HELL.  103 

a  vast  amount  of  mud  swept  into  heaven 
would  be  destructive  of  its  purity,  and  I  can- 
not accept  that  view. 

"  If,  on  the  other  hand,  you  say  they  went  to 
hell,  then  you  make  an  Infidel  of  me.  For  I 
do  swear"  (we  will  omit  the  oaths, —  Mr. 
Beecher  says  the  reporters  were  guilty  of  a  - 
mistake  here,  that  he  did  not  swear.  At  all 
events  Mr.  Beecher  shall  be  allowed  to 
amend).  Suffice  it  that  the  sentence  which 
follows  makes  Mr.  Beecher  very  emphatically 
reject  the  idea  that  they  went  to  hell.  He 
fails,  however,  to  tell  us  where  they  did  go  to. 
Perhaps,  according  to  Beecher-mania,  they  just 
went  out  —  vanished,  you  know, —  evaporated, 
so  to  speak  —  that  is,  they  were  not,  as  it 
were. 

He  continues :  "  Tell  me  that  back  of 
Christ  there  is  a  God,  who  for  unnumbered 
centuries  has  gone  on  creating  men  and  sweep- 
ing them  like  dead  flies  —  nay,  living  ones  — 
into  hell,  is  to  ask  me  to  worship  a  being  as 
much  worse  than  the  conception  of  any 
mediaeval  devil  as  can  be  imagined,  but  I  will 


1 04  THE  ABSOL  UTE  NECESSITIES. 

not  worship  the  devil  though  he  should  come 
and  sit  on  the  throne  of  Jehovah." 

Well,  who  tells  him  of  such  a  God  ?  Or 
who  asks  him  to  worship  such  a  being?  Not 
the  Bible!  Not  Christ!  Not  Christianity! 
Who  then  ? 

Ever  since  one  brave  soldier  hurled  his 
battle  flag  right  into  the  midst  of  the  pha- 
lanxes of  the  enemy,  and  then,  leading  on  his 
comrades  to  the  rescue,  overthrew  the  armies 
opposed  to  him,  quite  a  number  of  other  brave 
fellows  have  tried  the  same  experiment  and 
come  out  minus  a  flag.  And  though  no  one 
will  dispute  the  dauntless  courage  of  the  Gen- 
eral of  the  Plymouth  forces,  and  even  accord 
to  him  all  the  qualities  of  a  brave  soldier, 
which  I  am  told  sometimes  includes  profanity 
in  the  heat  of  action,  still  there  will,  no  doubt, 
be  found  many  who  will  question  his  qualities 
as  a  commander,  for  we  find  that,  having 
hurled  his  banner  into  the  ranks  of  the  enemy, 
his  battalions  were  not  equal  to  the  emergen- 
cy of  rescuing  it.  WThat  he  may  accomplish 
when  he  brings  up  his  reserves  remains  a 


TWO  ERRORS.  105 

question  of  the  future,  and  in  the  meantime 
the  flag  is  with  the  enemy. 

If  Col.  Ingersoll  does  not  flaunt  that  ban- 
ner from  the  flagstaff  of  Infidelity  for  some 
time  to  come,  I  shall  be  greatly  surprised. 

Mr.  Beecher  and  Mr.  Ingersoll  and  the  host 
of  other  sympathetic  natures  whom  Mr. 
Beecher's  words  here  represent,  are  possessed 
of  two  errors  that  have  been  quite  common  to 
such  noble  natures  for  more  than  a  century. 
They  are  these : 

First.  Accepting  what  the  commentators 
say  of  the.  Bible  instead  of  what  the  Bible 
says  itself.  And 

Second.  Permitting  their  imaginations  in- 
stead of  their  judgments  to  take  command 
of  their  sympathies. 

The  first  argues  much  for  their  faith  in 
humanity,  the  second  for  their  goodness  of 
heart ;  and  yet  it  is  hardly  safe  to  say  that 
either  is  an  evidence  of  those  qualities  we 
should  expect  to  find  in  the  leaders  of  a  great 
people. 

As   I   have  said,  a  complete  solution  of  Mr. 


106  THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

Beecher's  problem  may  be  had  by  substituting 
the  known  for  his  unknown  quantity.  So  far 
I  have  sought  to  confine  the  argument  to  the 
plainest  truths  and  purest  logic. 

The  peoples  who  lived  and  died  before  the 
Christian  era  went  into  the  same  eternity 
that  we  are  destined  to  enter,  and  subject  to 
the  only  possible  difference  of  condition  which 
has  been  wrought  by  and  through  Christ. 

But  leaving  the  relation  which  Christ  bears 
to  the  question  until  it  shall  take  its  place, 
we  will  consider  humanity  as  subject  to  the 
law  of  the  absolute  necessities :  a  law  co- 
existent with  every  atom  of  matter,  or  pulse 
of  mental  being. 

And  now,  under  this  law,  let  us  follow  the 
primitive  races  into  eternity;  let  us  see  what 
disposition  was  made  of  them  there,  and  we 
shall  learn  something,  though  not  entirely,  of 
the  disposition  that  will  be  made  of  all  who 
refuse  to  accept  Christ. 

Was  there  any  hell  awaiting  them  there  ? 
Was  there  any  heaven  awaiting  them  there  ? 
Yes,  both !  What  kind  of  hell  and  what 


HEAVEN  AND  HELL  CO-EXISTENT.         \Q>j 

kind  of  heaven  ?  The  same  kinds  that  await 
you  and  me.  But  must  hell  exist  eternally  ? 
As  surely  as  heaven  shall.  Do  you  mean  to 
say  that  a  sin  committed  in  this  life  will  be 
punished  throughout  eternity?  As  surely  as 
that  a  righteous  act  will  be  rewarded  through- 
out eternity.  Is  this  the  law  of  a  God  of  love  ? 
Yes,  for  it  is  the  law  of  being  —  the  law  neces- 
sary to  being  —  the  only  law  by  which  being 
could  be  made  possible  !  It  is  the  law  of  the 
absolute  necessities  ! 

Let  us  see  if  this   can  be  demonstrated. 
In  my  review  of  Mr.  Ingersoll  it  was  con- 
ceded  that  we   established  two   propositions, 
which  were  as  follows  : 

First,  There   is   not  an  atom  in  the  physical 
universe  which  is  absolute,  i.  e.,  entirely  in- 
dependent of  all  other  atoms. 
Second,  There  is  not  a  condition  in  the  spirit- 
ual universe  which  is  absolute,  i.  e.,  entirely 
independent  of  all  other  conditions. 
Now    if  those    two    propositions    are    true 
(and,  as  I  say,  it  was  admitted  that  we  proved 
them    to    be   true),   it   matters    little  whether 


IO8  Till-.  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

heaven  or  hell  be  places  or  conditions,  so 
far  as  the  argument  to  prove  their  eternal 
duration  is  concerned,  since,  in  either  case, 
neither  is  absolute.  And  so,  though  I  cannot 
do  violence  to  my  sense  of  consistent  logic  by 
discussing  either  heaven  or  hell  as  a  place, 
still  it  will  be  seen  that  what  I  may  offer 
touching  both,  considered  as  conditions,  will 
apply  as  forcibly  to  both,  considered  as  places. 

I   think  it  will   be   admitted,  without  argu- 
ment, that  there    are   but  two  conditions  in 
the  spiritual  universe — Heaven  and   Hell- 
though  there  may  be  some  difference  of  opin 
ion  as  to  degrees  pertaining  to  each,  possibly 
of  climate,  etc. ;  but   there   can  be  no  discus- 
sion on  the  original  proposition,  that  there  are 
but  the  two  conditions. 

The  correct  definitions  of  the  words  heaven 
and  hell  —  or,  perhaps,  I  should  say  what  I 
conceive  to  be  the  correct  definitions  —  may 
serve  us  here.  ""By  heaven,  then,  I  would  im- 
ply the  degrees  of  happiness,  and  by  hell  the 
degrees  of  unhappiness,  that  pertain  to  eter- 
nitv. 


HOMER,  PLATO,  PAUL,  BEECH ER.  109 

Well,  if  there  are  but  two  conditions  in  the 
spiritual  universe,  Heaven  and  Hell,  and  if,  as 
we  have  shown,  there  is  no  such  possibility  as 
an  absolute  condition  ;  or,  in  other  words,  an 
entirely  independent  condition,  each  must  bear 
a  relation  to  the  other,  since  there  is  nothing 
else  to  which  it  can  bear  a  relation. 

What,  then,  follows  from  this? 

Why,  that  all  souls  must  go  into  the  same 
eternity ;  that  each  soul  must  be  subject  to 
one  of  the  two  conditions  of  that  eternity,  and, 
if  subject  to  one,  its  possibilities  must  reach 
to  the  other ;  or,  in  other  words,  every  soul 
must  begin  the  new  life  at  just  that  step  on 
the  stair  of  development  for  which  it  has 
fitted  itself  in  this  life  ;  whether  it  be  the  soul 
of  Homer,  of  Plato,  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  or  of 
Henry  Ward  Beecher ;  whether  it  was  fitted 
through  the  genius  of  poetry,  of  philosophy, 
or  of  Christianity,  or  of  two  of  these,  or  of  all 
combined.  And  this  includes  all  who  have 
lived,  or  ever  will  live,  on  the  globe. 

Well,  after  they  begin  the  eternal  life,  then 
what  ? 


I  10  THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

A  little  while  ago,  the  question  was  asked  : 
"Must  hell  exist  eternally?"  and  answered, 
"  As  surely  as  that  heaven  shall." 

Immediately  after,  another  question  was 
asked :  "  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  a  sin 
committed  in  this  life  will  be  punished 
throughout  eternity  ?  "  and  answered  :  "  As 
surely  as  that  a  righteous  act  will  be  reward- 
ed throughout  eternity." 

Now,  while  I  hold  that  we  have  already 
sustained  those  answers,  or,  rather,  that  they 
become  axiomatic  in  the  light  of  the  princi- 
ples we  have  established,  I  will  proceed,  not- 
withstanding, to  make  them  plainer. 

We  will  begin  by  asking,  What  is  sin  ?  and 
all  will  at  once  answer:  Sin  is  the  transores- 

o 

sion  of  moral  law.  Another  question  :  Why 
do  men  sin  in  this  life?  We  shall,  no  doubt, 
agree  that  the  answer  to  this  is  :  Because  they 
do  not  rightly  estimate  the  terrible  conse- 
quences of  sin.  It  is  entirely  safe  to  assume 
that  if  men  could  foresee  the  terrible  conse- 
quences of  sin  they  would  shun  every  form  of 
sin,  as  they  now  shun  every  form  of  plague. 


MORAL  AND  PHYSICAL  LAW.  Ill 

To  illustrate :  a  man  does  not  transgress 
the  law  of  physical  being  by  putting  his  hand 
in  the  fire,  because  he  knows,  if  he  does,  his 
hand  will  burn.  And  it  would  be  just  so  in 
regard  to  the  law  of  moral  being  if  he  as  fully 
realized  the  certain  effects  that  are  sure  to 
follow  certain  causes. 

Another  thought  here.  It  is  through  sin 
that  we  sink  down  on  the  stair  of  moral  be- 
ing, and  it  is  through  righteousness  that  we 
rise  up  on  the  stair  of  moral  being.  All  this, 
so  far,  will  be  conceded. 

Well,  in  eternity  we  shall  know  the  effect 
of  every  moral  law,  just  as  well  as  we  know 
the  effect  here  of  that  physical  law  that  if  we 
put  our  hand  in  the  fire  the  hand  must  burn. 
Consequently,  no  one  will  sin,  all  will  gradu- 
ally rise  higher  on  the  stair  of  development 
in  proportion  to  his  moral  capacity. 

One  more  thought :  Nothing  can  be  surer 
than  that  there  can  be  no  final  landing  to  the 
stair  of  development  in  eternity  —  it  must  be 
an  eternal  development  —  it  must  be  infinite 
in  its  possibilities.  There  is  no  level  of 


I  I  2  THE  ADSOL  UTE  NECESSITIES. 

achieved  pre-eminence  here,  and  there  can 
be  nqne  there.  A  fixed  state  or  condition  of 
happiness,  however  exalted,  would  be  destruc- 
tive of  the  very  idea  of  happiness.  Confine  a 
man  to  the  limits  of  a  palace,  though  it  be 
ever  so  grand,  and  it  would  soon  become  a 
prison  ;  confine  a  soul  to  the  limits  of  a  single 
star,  though  it  be  the  greatest  of  the  constel- 
lations, and  existence  would  soon  become  un- 
endurable. 

The  words  heaven  and  hell,  as  usually 
defined,  must  inevitably  confuse  us.  There 
can  be  no  such  possibility  as  a  fixed  state  in 
eternity  ;  and,  as  we  have  shown,  the  soul  in 
eternity  can  only  be  subject  to  the  possibili- 
ties of  a  higher  development. 

The  doctrine  that  all  will  finally  be  "  saved," 
or  go  to  heaven,  is  as  illogical  as  that  all 
will  finally  be  "  lost,"  or  go  to  hell.  Either 
is  impossible. 

No  doubt,  we  should  all  agree  were  it  not 
for  the  confusion  of  words  ! 

Let  us  now  select  from  the  illustrious  names 
of  the  past,  Milton,  Procrustes  and  Caligula, 


MILTON,  PROCRUSTES,  CALIGULA.          113 

three  characters  with  whom  we  are  all  fa- 
miliar. 

And  let  us,  for  convenience,  illustrate  the 
moral  differences  between  them  as  so  much 
time.  We  will  suppose  that  these  began  their 
earth  lives  with  equal  opportunities  for  moral 
development ;  and  that  each  was,  therefore, 
alike  responsible  for  his  status  when  he 
passed  into  eternity. 

We  will  say  that  Milton's  moral  attainments 
were  such  that  when  he  passed  the  portals  of 
death  and  entered  into  eternal  life,  he  was  a 
thousand  years  beyond  Procrustes  on  the  stair 
of  development,  and  that,  for  like  reasons,  Pro- 
crustes was  a  thousand  years  beyond  Caligula. 

Now,  none  of  us  believe  that  the  future 
state  will  be  an  idle,  do-nothing  one :  no 
doubt  we  shall  all  agree  that  it  must  be  an 

o 

active,  progressive  one. 

Well,  these  three  begin  in  eternity  with  these 
relative  differences  between  them. 

You  will  at  once  see  the  justice  that  puts 
Milton  beyond  Procrustes,  and  Procrustes  be- 
yond such  a  man  as  Caligula.  You  will  say 

5* 


I  14  THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

it  is  but  a  mete  reward  — an  equitable  adjust- 
ment—  the  justice  of  which  each  will  himseM" 
acknowledge.  You  will  say  that  anything 
less  than  this  would  not  be  in  keeping  with 
the  eternal  love  and  justice  of  God.  You  will 
say  that  anything  less  than  this  would  be  an 
outrage  upon  the  simplest  principles  of  equity. 
Everybody  would  say  so  ;  Christians,  Infidels, 
Pagans,  the  very  savages  of  the  deserts  and 
wildernesses,  would  say  so ;  the  sunbeam  that 
quickens  the  perfect  before  the  imperfect  grain 
of  corn  would  say  so ;  the  dew  that  kisses 
the  one  before  the  other  has  peeped  above  its 
earth-bed  would  say  so  ;  the  zephyr  that  plays 
through  its  brighter,  stronger,  nobler  blades 
would  say  so ;  and  the  husbandman  who 
gathers  the  fruit  of  the  one  into  his  garner, 
and  casts  the  other  away,  would  say  so  ;  all 
heaven  and  earth,  and  the  things  that  are 
under  the  earth,  would  say  so. 

And  all  these  would  say  that  it  was  but  just 
and  equitable  that  each  should  occupy  his 
position  of  relative  superiority  throughout 
eternity ;  since,  whenever  that  should  cease, 


REWARDS  AND  PUNISHMENTS.  \  15 

equity  would  cease  and  justice  would  cease, 
and,  consequently,  love,  that  rewards  the 
good,  would  cease. 

Surely  we  can  all  agree  in  this.  But  do 
you  not  see  that  what  is  Milton's  reward 
becomes  Procrustes'  punishment?  and  that 
what  is  Procrustes'  reward  becomes  Calig- 
ula's punishment,  and  so  on  down  the  scale 
of  being  ? 

It  is  Milton's  punishment  that  he  is  a  thou- 
sand years  beneath  what  he  might  have  been, 
and  it  is  Procrustes'  punishment  that  he  is  a 
thousand  years  beneath  Milton,  and  it  is  Ca- 
ligula's punishment  that  he  is  a  thousand  years 
beneath  Procrustes  ;  and  if  there  is  any  poor 
wretch  lower  in  the  scale  of  being  than  Ca- 
ligula he  must  be  near  the  utterly  deepest 
bottom  of  perdition. 

And  since  those  relative  positions  must  be 
maintained  throughout  eternity,  as  each  rises 
up  on  the  stair  of  development,  rewards  and 
punishments  must  continue  throughout  eter- 
nity, and  it  is  simply  impossible  that  one  can 
continue  without  the  continuance  of  the  other. 


I  I  6  TIIK  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

T/ie  absolute  necessities  demand  that  it  must 
be  so!  For  the  only  possible  difference  be- 
tween Good  and  Bad,  Pure  and  Impure,  Wise 
and  Unwise,  Strength  and  Weakness,  Day  and 
Night,  Happiness  and  Unhappiness,  Heaven 
and  Hell,  and  everything  in  God's  universe, 
is  a  comparative  difference  ! 

But  do  you  make  heaven  and  hell  to  oc- 
cupy the  same  space  ?  Yes  and  No.  Yes, 
since  they  will  occupy  the  same  eternity.  No, 
since  the  pure  and  the  impure  will  not  be 
found  together.  And  this  law  is  in  harmony 
with  the  moral  law  of  society  on  our  own 
little  planet. 

In  regard  to  our  first  answer,  "Yes,"  let  me 
ask  the  question :  Is  there  more  than  one 
eternity  ?  Surely  not.  Well,  where  would 
you  draw  a  line  through  space?  How  build 
a  wall  in  ether? 

Again  :  Is  not  God  omnipresent  ?  The  Bible 
and  your  catechisms,  and  the  scientists  and 
everybody  else  says  He  is,  and  you  will  have 
to  answer  yes  along  with  them.  Now,  do  you 
not  see  that  you  cannot  have  a  separate  place 


BIBLE  PICTURE  OF  HELL.  \  \  £ 

for  hell  ?  for  God    must  be   there  and  every- 
where if  He   is  omnipresent. 

What,  then,  follows  from  this  ?  Why,  that 
heaven  and  hell  are  but  conditions  of  the 
same  eternity. 

Now,  in  regard  to  our  second  answer,  "  No," 
let  me  ask  the  question  :  What  is  more  repel- 
lent to  a  good  and  pure  man  or  woman  than 
the  society  of  the  corrupt  and  wicked  ?  or 
what  is  more  repellent  to  a  corrupt  and 
wicked  man  or  woman  than  the  society  of 
the  good  and  pure  ?  Here,  in  Chicago,  you 
have  your  churches  and  a  society  of  pure 
men  and  women  ;  you  have  also  your  slums 
of  vice  and  their  pitiable  inmates, —  do  these 
divisions  of  society  mix  together? 

In  eternity,  every  soul  that  is  dwarfed  or 
maimed  by  sin  or  impurity  will  be  recognized 
as  readily  as  a  dwarfed  or  maimed  body  is  rec- 
ognized on  earth,  and  they  will  shrink  from 
the  eye  of  the  pure,  and  call  upon  the  moun- 
tains to  bury  them  from  the  eye  of  God. 

But  will  the  sorrows  of  hell  be  as  terrible  as 
the  Bible  depicts  them  ?  This  is  a  horrible 


J  I  8  THE  .  \  liSOf.  UTE  NECESSITIES. 

thought,  and  yet  one  that  every  man  can 
answer  for  himself. 

The  scientists  and  philosophers  will  tell 
you  that  the  suffering  of  the  body  is  slight 
when  compared  to  the  suffering  of  the  mind. 
-  A  strong  willed  soldier,  once,  amputated 
his  own  limb,  and  then  seared  the  bleeding, 
sensitive  wound  with  a  red  hot  gun  barrel, 
and  so  stopped  the  effusion  of  blood  and 
recovered.  Years  after,  he  struck  down  his 
brother,  in  anger,  and  the  brother  died  —  and 
the  soldier  died  of  remorse !  He  could  en- 
dure the  amputation  of  his  own  limb,  and 
endure  the  torture  of  the  seething  iron, 
burning  into  his  quivering  flesh,  but  he 
could  not  endure  the  remorse  that  followed 
his  sin. 

Show  me  the  Bible's  picture  of  hell,  and  I 
will  show  you  a  soul  haunted  by  itself  through 
eternity  with  remorse  proportioned  to  its 
crimes.  What  is  lost  through  sin,  though  it 
be  but  a  loss  of  time,  can  never  be  recovered. 

When  Mr.  Beecher  talks  about  "  the  inroad 
of  that  vast  amount  of  mud  swept  into 


P ULP1 T  ME TAPHOR.  I  I  g , 

heaven  as  destructive  of  its  purity,"  and  when 
he  talks  about  "  sweeping  them  like  dead  flies 
-nay  living  ones  —  into  hell,"  he  indulges 
in  a  metaphor  that  out-Ingersolls  Ingersoll, 
nay  out-Beechers  Beecher.  It  is  without 
parallel  even  in  the  long  record  of  Plymouth's 
erratic  pastor,  or  in  the  annals  of  our  primi- 
tive western  eloquence,  or  yet  in  the  pristine 
purity  of  plantation  pulpit  philology. 

It  becomes  necessary  to  quote  from  Mr. 
Beecher,  again,  for  he  again  represents  a 
large  element  of  society  in  the  position  he 
assumes.  But  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  a 
man  who  has  stood  at  the  head  and  front 
of  American  moral  philosophers  so  long, 
could  say  what  he  does,  even  with  the  record 
before  us.  He  says  : 

"  Now,  that  the  race  should  be  put  in  this 
world  at  so  low  a  point  would  not  be  strange, 
any  more  than  it  is  strange  that  a  man  cuts  a 
little  twig  off  from  a  rose-bush,  and  puts  it 
in  a  thumb-pot  one  inch  across,  and  sets  it  on 
a  table  in  a  propagating  house,  with  bottom 
heat,  if  the  moral  problem  were  the  same  as 


I2O  TIIE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

the  physical  one  —  where  there  is  the  instru- 
mentality for  germfnating  the  twig,  where 
there  is  a  gardener  to  care  for  it,  to  shift  it,  to 
develop  it,  to  give  it  room  and  opportunity 
for  growth  and  maturity. 

"  But  that  has  not  been  the  history  of  the 
human  race.  Mankind  are  thrown  abroad  on 
this  continent  in  myriads,  and  we  know  that 
not  only  their  happiness  but  their  morality 
largely  depends  on  their  knowledge  of  how  to 
use  their  bodies,  and  how  to  control  the  nat- 
ural laws  that  surround  them  ;  but  on  these 
subjects  not  a  word  nor  a  syllable  is  told 
them." 

If  the  old  Testament  tells  us  anything,  it 
tells  us  that  from  the  time  man  was  cut  from 
the  original  bush  and  placed  in  the  thumb- 
pot  of  Eden,  to  the  dawn  of  the  Christian  era, 
the  great  Gardener  of  the  universe  took  the 
tenderest  care  of  him,  shifted  him,  straight- 
ened him,  and  gave  him  every  opportunity  for 
growth  and  development.  And  you  know 
this  is  so,  and  I  know  this  is  so,  and  every 
reader  of  that  Old  Testament  knows  it  is  so. 


MR.  B  EEC  HERS  MA  THEM  A  TICS.  \  2  I 

And  we  know,  besides,  that,  perhaps,  there 
never  was  a  plant  that  gave  a  gardener  so 
much  trouble.  And  we  are  inclined  to  think 
that  we  have  a  forcible  illustration  of  what 

that  original  plant  was  in  the  erratic  pastor  of 

£ 

Plymouth  Church. 

Mr.  Beecher  continues : 

"  The  sweep  of  the  populations  that  have 
swarmed  on  the  globe  is  simply  inconceiv- 
able. ...  Not  all  the  waves  of  the  ocean 
that  have  beaten  on  its  shores  during  all.  the 
centuries  of  time  contained  drops  enough. 
.  .  .  Not  all  the  sands  of  the  sea-shore,  all 
the  stars  of  heaven  and  all  the  figures  of 
arithmetic." — Well,  we  haven't  time  to  com- 
pute it,  you  know, — "  and  during  three  fourths 
of  its  history  the  race  was  without  an  altar, 
or  a  church,  or  an  authorized  priest,  a  reve- 
lation, or  anything  but  the  light  of  nature." 

Now,  when  Mr.  Beecher  antedates  so,  in 
order  to  sustain  his  mathematics,  what  can 
he  know  about  "three-fourths"  of.  those  pre- 
historic times  ?  or  one-fourth,  or,  indeed,  any 
part  except  what  the  Old  Testament  speaks 


122  THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

of?  He  is  dealing  here  very  vigorously  in 
assertions.  There  is  a  bound  even  to  poetic 
pastures,  beyond  which  are  the  fields  called 
pure  fiction. 

"Ever  to  that  truth, 

Which  but  the  semblance*of  a  falsehood  wears, 
A  man,  if  possible,  should  bar  his  lip." 

Dante  x  III//TIIO,   Canto  A"/"/. 

Well,  how  does  Mr.  Beecher  reconcile  the 
terrible  state  of  things  he  depicts  here  ? 

Why,  after  sleepless  nights  and  throes  of 
agony,  amidst  grave  doubts  and  graver  re- 
sponsibilities, and  visions  of  reformers  pelted 
and  beaten,  and  visions  of  the  persecutions  of 
advanced  thinkers, —  after  all  this  and  much 
more  of  like  character,  descriptive  of  the  labor 
of  the  mountain,  behold  the  twin  thoughts 
that  are  brought  forth  :  "  God's  ways  are  not 
our  ways,"  and,  "  What  is  time  with  us  is  not 
time  with  God, "--two  old  theological  saws 
that  have  ruined  work  wherever  they  have 
been  used ;  two  answers  that  have  made 
more  infidels  than  Mr.  Beecher  has  hairs  in 
his  venerable  head.  And  yet  if  you  will  boil 
down  Mr.  Beecher's  answers,  and  let  the 


FROM  A  SCIENTIFIC  STANDPOINT. 


123 


rhetorical  steam  evaporate,  this  is  all  you 
will  have  left.  And  I  quote  these  answers 
not  in  irreverence  to  their  great  author,  but 
because  they  are  fair  samples  of  many  of 
the  answers  that  have  been  given  on  one 
side  of  this  question,  and  are  only  matched, 
I  think,  by  the  entire  negation  of  the  infidels 
on  the  other  side. 

If  you  please,  we  will  now  take  up  the 
theory  of  creation,  the  law  of  being,  and  dis- 
cuss it  from  the  scientific  standpoint.  I  de- 
sire, as  the  first  step,  to  lay  down  what  I 
conceive  to  be  three  incontrovertible  prop- 
ositions ;  three  propositions  that  become  ax- 
iomatic when  viewed  in  the  light  of  pure 
philosophy  and  reason.  They  are  as  follows : 
First.  There  is  but  one,  and  there  could  by 

no  possibility  be  more  than  one,  universe. 
Second.  There  is  but  one,  and  there  could  by 

no    possibility    be    more    than    one,  set    of 

laws  for  that  one  universe. 
Third.  Every  law  of  that  one  universe  must 

be    in    perfect    harmony    with    every   other 

law  of  that  one  universe. 


.    124  7///'   ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

Here,  then,  we  have  struck  three  bed-rock 
truths  of  both  science  and  philosophy.  In- 
fidels, Christians,  everybody, —  Huxley,  Tyn- 
dall,  Baine,  Ingersoll,  Beecher,  Prof.  Swing, 
the  Apostle  Paul,  everybody, —  will  indorse 
these.  So  far  we  are  all  agreed.  And  now  let 
us  keep  our  minds  free  from  all  entangling 
alliances,  and  all  special  theories,  for  a  little 
while.  And  please  do  not  anticipate  what  is 
coming ! 

I  shall  not  lead  you  into  any  of  the  old 
paths.  I  am  wedded  to  no  sect,  no  school  of 
metaphysics  or  theology,  and  I  shall  only  ask 
that  you  shall  not  be  for  the  little  while  that 
remains  to  us.  I  am  merely  an  earnest,  and, 
I  trust,  honest  seeker  for  truth,  and  I  propose 
to  follow  the  straight  path  of  pure  logic  wher- 
ever it  shall  lead  me,  beginning  with  these 
three  facts  we  have  before  us  —  these  three 
incontrovertible  truths.  And  if  we  do  this 
it  is  impossible  that  we  should  go  wrong. 
But  we  must  not  swerve  from  the  straight 
line, —  no,  not  the  breadth  of  ahair.  Though 
old  familiar  forms  and  faces,  that  have  been 


THE  LOGICAL  PATH.  125 

the  companions  of  other  days,  shall  beckon 
us  from  either  side,  aye,  though  they  may 
have  been  our  school-fellows,  or  may  have 
knelt  with  us  at  the  altar  through  three-score 
years  and  ten,  yet  must  we  not  swerve  from 
the  straight  path  of  logic  the  millionth  part  of 
a  point,  or  every  step  will  but  lead  us  farther 
away. 

The  only  reason  that  all  men  do  not  reach 
the  same  conclusion  is  that  they  train  their 
logic  to  subserve  some  pet  idea,  instead  of 
letting  it  take  its  own  pure  logical  path.  We 
can  all  agree  upon  the  foundation  facts  as  a 
starting  point ;  but  we  are  apt  to  fly  the  track 
when  we  discover  that  it  doesn't  lead  to  "  our 
meetin'-house." 

Well,  if  there  is  but  one  universe,  and  if 
there  could  by  no  possibility  be  more  than  one 
universe,  as  claimed  in  our  first  proposition, 
and  if  every  law  of  that  one  universe  must  be 
in  harmony  with  every  other  law  of  that  one 
universe  as  claimed  in  our  two  subsequent 
propositions,  it  follows  that  if  we  find  one 
single  law  that  is  absolutely  necessary  to  that 


I  2  6  THE  A  BSOL  U  TE  NECESSITIES. 

one  universe  we  have  found  a  law  with  which 
all  other  laws  must  work  in  harmony. 

We  are  still  agreed. 

Now  I  affirm  that  the  law  of  development 
is  one  of  those  laws.  Don't  anticipate  ! 

Let  us  see  if  we  can  find  that  law  in  exist- 
ence, and  then  let  us  see  if  it  is  one  of  the  pri- 
mary laws,  or  fundamental  laws  ;  or,  in  other 
words,  one  of  the  laws  absolutely  necessary  to 
existence.  If  we  find  that  it  is,  we  will  have 
found  a  law  with  which  all  other  laws  must 
work  in  harmony. 

We  will  seek,  first,  in  the  world  of  matter. 
We  will  take  a  grain  of  corn. 

In  the  order  of  its  being,  corn  must  proceed 
from  the  germ  of  life  that  is  in  the  grain  ; 
must  receive  nutrition  from  the  earth,  and 
warmth  from  the  sun's  rays,  before  it  can  burst 
its  shell ;  these  are  the  first  operations  that 
link  it  to  the  earth,  and  link  it  to  solar  heat. 
Then  it  leaps  up  from  the  earth,  and  is  em- 
braced by  the  arms  of  the  light,  and  kissed  by 
the  zephyrs  of  morning,  to  be  received,  amid 
the  perfume  of  grasses  and  the  song  of 


THE  LA  W  OF  DE  VELOPMENT.  12J 

flowers,  upon  the  loving  breast  of  the  glori- 
ous day.  Thus  is  it  taken  into  fellowship, 
and  thus  does  it  become  a  part  of  the  world  ; 
thus  is  it  allied  to  the  physical  universe,  and 
thus  is  it  put  in  possession  of  its  identity. 
This  is  the  law  of  its  being,  which,  we  shall 
find,  is  in  harmony  with  the  laws, of  all  phys- 
ical being. 

But,  at  this  point,  the  question  arises,  Why 
this  arbitrary  law,  this  gradual  process?  Why 
could  it  not  have  been  different,  so  that  other 
laws  should  be  different  in  conformity  to  it  ? 
This  would,  no  doubt,  be  Mr.  Ingersoll's 
inquiry,  were  he  here.  Why  f  Because  any- 
thing else  were  impossible!  This  is  another 
one  of  the  absolute  necessities.  I  think  we 
can  demonstrate  this. 

Suppose  I  wish  to  bring  my  hands  together 
-  they  are  now  some  distance  apart  —  I  bring 
them  together ;  it  was  a  gradual  movement, 
requiring  a  full  second  of  time.  Suppose  I 
bring  them  together  with  the  greatest  possible 
speed  ;  it  was  a  less  gradual  movement  than 
before,  but  gradual,  nevertheless. 


128  'I'UK  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

The  electric  flash  of  the  lightning  is  very 
quick;  it  seems  to  cleave  the  air  in  an  in- 
stant ;  but  it  is  a  gradual  movement.  The 
first  strata  of  air  are  pierced  before  the 
second,  and  the  second  before  the  third,  and 
the  first  stratum,  or  wave  of  the  first  strata, 
of  air  is  divided  before  the  second  wave  of 
the  first  strata  is  divided. 

Now,  in  order  that  the  grand  harmony  of 
the  universe  should  be  maintained,  it  was 
necessary  that  there  should  be  a  relationship, 
or  fellowship,  of  all  things,  animate  and  inani- 
mate. And  so  if  we  take  up  the  orders  of  the 
lower  animals,  we  find  them  closely  allied  to 
the  little  grain  of  corn.  We  find  similar  and 
harmonious  laws  applying  to  them  that  apply 
to  vegetable  life.  We  find  them  proceeding 
from  a  germ,  and  by  a  gradual  movement  un- 
dergoing the  process  of  development.  And 
we  find  them  linked  to  the  physical  universe, 
not  only  by  the  laws  by  which  they  have 
reached  the  full  stature  of  maturity,  but  by 
the  very  composition  of  their  nerves  and 
fibers  and  tissues.  All  this  was  necessary  if 


THE  POSSIBILITIES  OF  EXISTENCE.       I  29 

the  grand  harmony  of  the  universe  be  main- 
tained. 

Let  us  follow  the  logical  path  a  little  far- 
ther. 

Now,  if  there  is  but  one,  and  if  there  could 
by  no  possibility  be  more  than  one,  universe, 
and  if  there  can  be  but  one  set  of  laws  for  the 
one  universe,  and  if  those  laws  must  work  in 
perfect  harmony,  it  follows  that  the  only  ^os- 
sibility  of  existence  must  be  in  the  one  uni- 
verse, since  there  is  no  other ;  and  every  ex- 
istence in  the  one  universe  must  be  subject 
to  the  one  set  of  laws  in  the  one  universe, 
and  every  law  in  the  one  universe  must  be 
in  perfect  harmony  with  every  other  law  in 
the  one  universe. 

Well,  if  the  only  possibility  of  existence  is  in 
the  one  universe,  it  follows  that  the  existence 
of  man  must  be  in  the  one  universe  ;  and  since 
there  can  be  but  one  set  of  laws  in  the  one 
universe,  it  follows  that  man  must  be  subject 
to  that  one  set  of  laws  ;  and  since  every  law 
in  the  one  universe  must  work  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  every  other  law  in  the  one  universe, 


1 3o 


THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 


it  follows  that  the  law  of  man's  physical  being 
must  be  in  harmony  with  all  other  laws  of 
physical  being.  And  so  we  find  man,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  vegetables,  and  the  different  orders 
of  animals,  linked  to  the  physical  universe,  not 
only  by  the  laws  by  which  he  has  reached  the 
full  stature  of  maturity,  but  by  the  very  com- 
position of  his  body.  All  this  was  necessary 
to  preserve  the  sublime  harmony  of  the  uni- 
verse. 

We  come  now  to  speak  of  man's  immortal 
part,  his  spiritual  nature  ;  for  this,  too,  must  be 
a  part  of  the  grand  harmony  of  all  things. 

What  is  the  scientific  bed-rock?  Why,  that 
there  are  but  two  things  in  the  universe - 
matter  and  mind.  What  does  science  tell  us 
that  man  is  composed  of?  Matter  and  mind. 
What  does  the  Bible  tell  us  that  man  is  com- 
posed of?  "  Dust  of  the  earth,"  or  matter,  and 
"  breath  of  life,"  or  mind.  Man,  then,  becomes 
the  great  connecting  link  between  matter  and 
God.  Of  all  things,  man  alone  is  composed 
of  the  two  materials  —  matter  and  mind  ;  so  if 
there  were  such  a  condition  as  a  double  neces- 


SOUL,  MIND  AND  THOUGHT.  131 

sity,  we  should    say  that    it    becomes  doubly 
necessary  that  man  should  be  in  perfect  har 
mony  with  the  universe,  should  we  not,  since 
he  occupies  the  relation  he  does  to  both  ele- 
ments of  the  universe  ? 

Let  us  see  if  we  cannot  demonstrate  that 
man  not  only  is,  but  that  the  law  of  spiritual 
existence  demands,  nay,  makes  it  the  con- 
dition of,  the  absolute  necessity  to  his  being, 
that  he  be  in  perfect  harmony  with  this  law 
of  development. 

Now,  if  we  show  that  there  are  necessities 
to  thought,  it  follows  that  we  have  shown 
necessities  to  mind. 

So,  if  we  find  that  the  law  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  thought  is  the  same  law  which  we 
found  necessary  to  matter,  i.  e.,  the  law  of 
development,  of  gradual  movement,  we  shall 
have  found  a  law  as  necessary  to  mind  and 
soul. 

(We  cannot  pause  here  to  discuss  the  differ- 
ence between  mind  and  soul,  but  must  reserve 
that  for  another  time.  In  a  word,  I  hold  that 
mind  is  the  connecting  link  between  the  body 


1^2  '/'///:  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

and  the  soul,  and  that  thought  is  that  extra- 
neous, indefinable  something  which  is  com- 
municated by  the  soul,  through  the  mind,  to 
the  body.) 

Well,  you  will  admit  that,  though  a  thought 
is  very  quick  in  its  movement  (and  hence  we 
sometimes  say,  as  quick  as  thought),- —  that  a 
thought  may  not  pass  through  the  mind  in 
an  instant.  I  think  we  can  realize  this  when 
we  recall  our  personal  experience,  wherein  it 
has  required  quite  a  little  while  to  get  some 
thoughts  through  our  minds.  Possibly  the 
present  may  be  one  of  those  instances.  Let 
us  try  to  make  it  plainer :  a  thought  must 
first  enter  the  brain,  and  the  brain  becomes  the 
medium  through  which  it  is  communicated 
to  the  body,  and  then  the  body  acts  in 
obedience  to  the  thought. 

Or,  to  recall  the  figure  we  took  from  the 
material  world,  a  flash  of  lightning  is  very 
quick  in  its  action,  but  it  must  cleave  the  air, 
strata  by  strata ;  the  stratum  or  wave  that 
is  nearest  it  must  always  be  pierced  first, 
before  it  can  reach  the  second  wave,  and  it  is 


THE  HARMON  T  OF  THE  UNIVERSE.    133 

just  so  with  a  thought ;  it  must  enter  the 
first  wave  of  mind,  if  you  will  permit  the 
figure,  before  it  can  enter  the  second  wave 
of  mind,  and  the  second  before  it  can  enter 
the  third,  and  so  on  till  it  has  passed  through 
the  mind. 

This  illustration  serves  us  in  understand- 
ing that  the  law  is  universal,  and  applies  to 
small  thoughts  as  well  as  great ;  and  that 
the  development  of  a  thought  is  the  process 
of  a  movement  to  an  idea,  or  that  thought 
is  a  process  of  development,  and  conse- 
quently subject  to  the  law  of  development. 
Therefore  the  law  of  development  is  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  thought,  and  if  to  thought, 
to  mind  and  soul. 

V 

What,  then,  is  the  deduction  ? —  it  is  very 
plain,  and  it  is  very  sure, — why,  this : 

The  condition  of  man's  being,  the  absolute 
necessity  to  man's  being,  demands  that  he  be 
in  perfect  harmony  with  the  universe  —  the 
laws  and  conditions  of  the  universe.  And 
since  there  is  and  could  be  but  one  universe, 
and  there  is  and  could  be  but  one  set  of  laws, 


134 


THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 


therefore  the  laws  and  conditions  to  which 
the  human  race  is  subject  are  the  only  laws 
and  conditions,  physical  and  spiritual,  by 
which  existence  in  the  absolute  could  be 
made  possible. 

From  this  very  simple  arrangement  of  very 
simple  truths  it  follows  that  man  was  not 
placed  on  this  earth  by  the  caprice  of  a 
Creator,  but  in  harmony  with  immutable  law. 
Immutable,  because  it  were  impossible  that 
it  should  be  different  from  just  what  it  is. 
And  this  is  just  as  sure  as  that  there  is  and 
could  by  no  possibility  be  but  one  universe; 
and  that  there  is  and  could  by  no  possibility 
be  but  one  set  of  laws  for  that  one  universe; 
and  that  there  is  and  could  by  no  possibility 
be  but  one  God  of  that  one  universe ! 

Philosophies  here  center  /  Upon  this  moun~ 
tain  top  that  overlooks  the  world,  this  ever- 
lasting rock  on  which  is  set  the  azimuth  stair 
of  God,  lo,  we  may  challenge  every  school 
of  science  and  of  thought^  for  the  conception 
of  a  law  of  being  other  than  this !  It  is 
absolutely  inconceivable  ! 


FREE,   UN  TRAMMELED   WILL.  135 

When  Mr.  Beecher  and  Mr.  Ingersoll  fret 
and  scold  about  the  slow  and  plodding 
progress  of  humanity,  they  are  but  fretful 
children,  whining  of  the  winter's  cold,  or 
scolding:  the  bright  sunbeams  in  the  sum- 

o  o 

mer's  noon. 

The  slow  and  plodding  progress  of  human- 
ity is  but  the  gradual  though  sure  develop- 
ment of  man.  And  when  Mr.  Beecher  and 
Mr.  Ingersoll  and  Mr.  Thomas  Paine,  and 
the  little  army  of  little  philosophical  guer- 
rillas that  train  under  them,  fret  and  scold 
because  He,  whom  they  call  an  "  omnipotent 
God  of  love,"  did  not  force  knowledge  and 
enlightenment  upon  the  human  race,  instead 
of  leaving  it  to  the  freedom  of  an  untram- 
meled  will  and  its  own  development,  they  are 
not  less  children  or  less  deserving  of  our  pity. 

It  was  upon  the  foundation  of  free,  un- 
trammeled  will  that  the  superstructure  of  the 
mind  was  built.  It  was  through  the  prin- 
ciple of  free  ^^,ntrammeled  will  that  Attain- 
ment reached  down  from  her  sublime  heights 

O 

and    clasped    the    hand   of    Endeavor.     It    is 


136  THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

by  the  talismanic  power  of  free,  untrammeled 
will  that  man  leaps  from  earth  to  heavn, 
knocks  at  its  door  and  is  admitted  to  the 
court  of  angels. 

A  story  is  told  of  a  North  American  Indian 
chief,  who  stood  watching  an  engine  and  its 
train  of  cars  as  it  came  rushing  into  a  station 
of  the  Pacific  railroad.  An  expression  of  stoic 
dignity  set  every  line  of  his  bronzed  features. 
He  walked  up  to  the  engine  and  regarded  it 
closely.  It  did  not  move  now.  The  engineer 
had  leaped  off  the  opposite  side  unobserved 
by  the  savage,  and  so  no  one  was  about  it. 
He  watched  it  to  see  if  it  would  give  any 
signs  of  life,  but  it  did  not  move.  Presently 
the  engineer  sprang  up  to  his  place  ;  he  pulled 
a  bar,  and  it  screamed  ;  he  pulled  another  bar, 
and  it  breathed  heavily ;  he  pulled  another 
bar,  it  trembled,  it  moved  ;  and  as  it  rushed 
away  the  Indian  turned,  and,  grunting  his 
contempt,  strode  proudly  over  the  plain. 

A  man  is  a  wonderful  piece  of  machinery, 
but  it  is  the  freedom  of  his  will  that  makes 
him  a  demigod.  Man  is  a  wonderful  piece  of 


THE  ADVENT  OF  CHRIST.  137 

machinery,  but  take  away  from  him  the  free- 
dom of  his  will  and  he  would  be  no  more 
than  that  engine  that  was  the  contempt  of  a 
savage. 

This  brings  us  to  the  advent  of  Christ.  It 
will  not  be  expected  that  we  can,  at  this  time, 
enter  into  a  lengthy  discussion  of  the  relation 
of  Christ  to  humanity,  or  of  His  peculiar  rela- 
tion to  those  who  accept,  believe  and  obey 
Him.  And  yet  I  hold  that  even  these  may 
be  scientifically  demonstrated  by  axiomatic 
truths  and  their  purest  logical  deductions. 

We  can  only,  at  present,  pass  through  so 
much  as  becomes,  at  this  point,  necessary  to 
the  immediate  question  before  us. 

It  would  not  do  to  draw  a  comparison  be- 
tween nations  in  cffscussing  a  subject  so  cos- 
mical  in  its  character  as  the  one  before  us,  or 
it  were  easy  to  show  that  Christianity  and 
Enlightenment  go  hand  in  hand.  Should  I 
compare  the  nations  of  earth,  I  should  speak 
of  my  own  America.  I  should  hail  her  as  the 
land  beyond  all  others  !  I  should  crown  her 
Queen  of  Nations  ! 

6* 


138  Till-:  A HSOL UTE  NECESSITIES, 

"My  country  !  Oh,  of  thee, 
Sweet  land  of  Liberty, 

Of  thee  1\1  sin<r; 
Till  from  thy  rocks  and  rills, 
Thy  woods  and  templed  hills, 
Wherever  rapture  thrills, 

Thy  name  should  ring." 

But,  now,  our  song  must  not  be  confined  to 
a  national  soprano,  it  must  be  attuned  to  the 
sublime  chorus  that  is  joined  wherever  man 
is  free,  wherever  woman  is  pure,  wherever 
knowledge  is  triumphant,  wherever  virtue  is 
rewarded,  wherever  the  chimes  of  sabbath 
bells  are  heard,  and  the  children  are  triad  on 

fj 

Christmas   morn. 

The  effect  of  the  Christian  system,  as  seen 
in  the  enlightenment  of  the  human  race,  is 
evident  to  all;  Christianity  needs  no  en- 
comium at  my  hands.  I  will  only  drop  in 
one  item  here,  and  one  which,  I  think,  may 
be  clearly  demonstrated.  It  is  this: 

As  advanced  thought  is  the  food  necessary 
to  the  higher  development  of  the  mind,  so 
is  Christianity  the  food  necessary  to  the 
highest  development  of  the  soul ;  and  as  the 
mind  must  be  developed  to  a  certain  point 


Wlir  HE  DID  NOT  COME  SOONER. 


139 


before  it  can  receive  advanced  thought,  so  must 
the  soul  be  developed  to  a  certain  point  before 
it  can  receive  Christianity.  From  this  it  will 
be  seen  that  Christianity,  considered  from  a 
scientific  standpoint,  is  a  system  of  psycho- 
logical development.  But  considered  from  a 
theological  standpoint,  there  is  a  question  of 
atonement,  which  we  must  leave  for  another 
time. 

It  is  sometimes  asked:  Why  was  not  Christ 
sent  into  the  world  at  an  earlier  period  ? 
Christ  was  sent  into  the  world  just  as  soon 
as  the  human  race  was  ready  to  receive  Him. 
But  you  will  say  there  were  times  prior  to 
His  coming  when  the  world  was  farther  ad- 
vanced in  the  arts  and  sciences  than  at  the 
time  He  did  come.  Very  true  ;  but  not  on 
the  stair  of  moral  being.  Though  we  may  not 
be  able  to  mark  the  distinction  between  the 
intellectual  and  the  moral,  God  is,  and  He 
did  it. 

The  enlightened  of  the  human  race  had 
Moses  just  as  soon  as  they  were  ready  to  re- 
ceive him,  and  they  had  the  prophets  just  as 


140 


THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 


soon  as  they  were  ready  to  receive  them  ;  and 
then  came  John  the  Baptist,  and  then  Christ, 
in  fulfillment  of  the  great  law  of  being.  Well, 
what  is  that  law  of  being?  Why,  this:  that 
just  as  fast  as  humanity  is  capable  of  devel- 
opment, just  that  fast  are  the  means  of  devel- 
opment given.  This  is  a  law  as  universal  as 
the  love  of  God ;  it  is  a  law  that  permeates 
every  atom  of  matter  and  every  condition  of 
mind.  As  fast  as  the  blade  of  grass  requires 
nutrition  of  the  earth  it  is  supplied  through 
its  roots,  and  as  oft  as  it  thirsts  it  may  drink 
of  the  dew,  and  as  oft  as  it  calls  for  the  sun- 
beam, as  oft  does  it  feel  the  sunbeam's  kiss. 
When  a  babe  is  born  into  the  world  it  re- 
quires the  daintiest  thoughts,  and  these  are 
supplied  through  its  delicate  mind.  When 
the  babe  is  grown  to  a  child,  it  is  given  the 
birds  and  the  flowers.  When  the  child  is  a 
maiden,  or  youth,  it  has  music,  and  twilight, 
and  stars,  and  love  and  sighs  ;  and  when 
the  full  stature  of  manhood  and  womanhood 
comes,  we  have  thought — we  have  thought - 
and  communion  with  God  !  And  these  are 


THE  LAW  OF  SACRIFICE. 


141 


inexhaustible !  And  these  shall  endure  for- 
ever ! 

And  this  leads  us  to  another  point  —  the 
Sacrifice  of  Christ.  Why  was  it  necessary 
that  He  should  be  sacrificed?  He,  the  Pure, 
the  Immaculate  One? 

The  answer  is  simple  and  plain  —  In  obedi- 
ence to  law !  the  law  of  the  eternal  neces- 
sities!—the  law  that  sits  on  the  throne  of 
Jehovah,  touches  the  harp  of  the  universe,  and 
attunes  the  sweet  song  of  the  stars  ! 

Why,  there  is  nothing  that  is  not  subject  to 
the  law  of  sacrifice  !  The  flower  that  blooms 
in  your  garden,  exhaling  its  rare  perfumes, 
was  only  produced  through  sacrifice  of  earth, 
and  air,  and  sunlight,  and  dew.  The  pebble 
that  lies  in  the  brooklet,  the  granite  that 
stands  by  the  sea-shore,  were  only  produced 
through  sacrifice,  and  the  labor  of  years  and 
years  !  And  man  is  produced  through  sacri- 
fice, and  travail,  and  groans,  and  is  only  sus- 
tained through  sacrifice  of  millions  and  mill- 
ions of  atoms,  of  millions  and  millions  of 
lives  ! 


142 


/•///•;  ABSOLUTE  .VAV/-;.S.S7y//;.V. 


And  when  that  great,  grand  work  was  at 
hand  —  the  higher  development  and  redemp- 
tion of  man  —  no  less  a  sacrifice  was  de- 
manded than  Christ,  the  Son  of  God. 

This   brings   us  to   the    closing    thought  — 
Miracles. 

We  have  reached  the  dangerous  pass  in 
our  logical  path  ;  but  let  us  not  falter  !  Our 
path  is  along  a  narrow  ledge,  but  it  is  straight 
ahead  ;  let  us  not  falter  now  !  It  is  very  nar- 
row, but  it  is  firm,  it  is  sure,  it  is  God's  own 
granite,  its  base  is  deep  in  the  earth  !  It  is 
narrow,  but  it  is  plain,  it  stands  out  clean  cut 
through  the  ether ;  let  us  not  falter !  We 
have  reached  its  dizziest  height ;  as  you  are 
a  man,  do  not  falter  !  as  you  are  a  man,  press 
on  ! 

Is  not  every  miracle  a  violation  of  law  ? 
No  !  There  never  was  a  miracle  in  violation 
of  law  !  God  never  broke  a  single  law  of  the 
universe  !  What,  then  is  miracle  ?  The  ex- 
ercise of  God's  reserve  power,  in  obedience 
to  law. 

What  do  you  mean  ?    Why,  this  :  Professor 


MIRACLES.  143 

Morse  knew  the  law  of  electrical  currents,  and 
the  laws  of  atmosphere,  and  of  light,  and  of 
heat,  and  of  metals;  and  he  had  the  power  to 
use  these  as  other  people  did.  But  back  of 
this  he  had  a  reserve  power.  What  was  that? 
Why,  to  manipulate  those  different  laws,  and 
without  disturbing  their  harmony,  so  as  to 
produce  the  telegraph ;  and  ignorant  men 
called  that  a  miracle. 

Well,  just  so  God  holds  a  reserve  power. 
This  is  a  quality  of  Hh  omniscience  that  is 
equal  to  any  emergency.  The  absolute  ne- 
cessity to  omniscience  is  that  it  be  equal  to  all 
emergencies.  God  has  the  power  to  use  all 
the  laws  of  the  universe  just  as  we  use  them, 
but  back  of  this  He  has  a  reserve  power  by 
which  he  can  manipulate  these,  and  without 
disturbing  their  harmony,  so  as  to  produce 
miracles.  Men  are  performing  miracles  every 
day  to  the  extent  of  that  power  that  their 
limited  wisdom  contains  and  holds  in  reserve 
for  emergencies.  But  as  God's  wisdom  is  un- 
limited, His  reserve  power  is  equal  to  all  emer- 
gencies. 


144  THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

Science  is  fast  bringing  these  things  to  the 
light  of  human  intelligence. 

What  scientists  perform,  now,  every  day, 
were  declared  impossible  a  few  years  ago ; 
and  what  we  deem  impossible,  now,  will,  no 
doubt,  be  simple  and  plain  in  a  few  years 
hence.  For  just  as  fast  as  the  mind  calls  for 
food,  just  that  fast  is  the  mind  supplied.  And 
as  oft  as  the  Soul  shall  call  to  its  God,  as  oft 
shall  its  God  answer:  Here  am  I. 

Now,  the  miracles  of  the  Apostles  were 
beyond  the  miracles  of  Franklin,  and  Morse, 
and  Fulton.  Why  ?  Because  they  were  not 
performed  by  the  Apostles,  but  by  God. 
Theirs  was  a  delegated  power, —  they  wrought 
through  pure  faith,  not  knowledge.  Christ 
told  them,  before  He  went  away,  that  when 
one  of  these  difficult,  scientific  problems  was 
presented,  to  send  it  up  to  Him,  and  He 
would  solve  it.  And  they  followed  His  in- 
structions, and  He  did  solve  every  problem 
that  they  sent  up  to  the  court  of  heaven. 
He  did  not  show  the  figures  or  the  demon- 
stration of  how  they  were  done,  for  they 


GOD'S  RESERVE  PO  WER.  I  AC 

7*  v 

could  not  have  comprehended  tfyem,  but  He 
sent  the  correct  "  answer."  every  time.  And 
He  is  solving  problems  for  us  every  day. 
We  get  into  trouble  and  we  pray  to  Him, 
and  He  helps  us  out  of  it.  We  don't  know 
how  it  is  done,  but  when  the  load  is  lifted 
from  our  hearts  we  know  that  it  is  done. 
And  every  time  this  is  done,  a  miracle  is 
performed.  It  may  be  only  a  very  small 
miracle,  sometimes, —  small  when  compared 
to  the  raising  of  Lazarus  from  the  tomb,— 
but  it  is  a  miracle  nevertheless.  And  when 
we  .come  to  put  on  immortality  He  will 
solve  that  problem,  and  in  obedience  to  law, 

I  said,  a  few  moments  ago : 

"  Science  is  fast  bringing  these  things  to 
the  light  of  human  intelligence."  Science  is 
doing  it  —  or  God  is  doing  it  —  or  both; 
may  be,  after  all,  they  are  but  one,  if  we  only 
knew  what  we  were  talking  about.  Science  is 
bringing  great  truths  to  light — though  some 
of  the  scientists  are  submitting  to  the  results 
of  their  own  experiments  with  very  ill  grace. 

Why,  a  few  years  ago  the  Infidels  said  that 


146  THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

the  idea  of.  Christ's  miraculous  conception 
was  so  opposed  to  all  reason  and  law,  that  it, 
in  itself,  overthrew  the  entire  Christian  phi- 
losophy. 

Well,  Huxley  and  Bain,  and  a  score  of 
other  scientists  and  specialists,  started  out 
to  settle  the  whole  question  with  the  micro- 
scope. 

This  was  their  last  ditch,  and  they  proposed 
to  rout  us  here.  What  is  the  result?  If  you 
will  turn  to  the  recent  ninth  edition  of  the 
"  Encyclopedia  Britannica,"  you  will  find,  in 
the  article  on  Biology,  by  Professor  Huxley, 
page  687,  these  words  : 

"  Generation  by  fission  and  gemmation  are 
not  confined  to  the  simplest  forms  of  life. 
Both  modes  are  common,  not  only  among 
plants,  but  among  animals  of  considerable 
complexity." 

Again  : 

"  Through  almost  the  whole  series  of  living 
beings  we  find  agamo-genesis,  or  not-sexual 
generation." 

o 

And    Bain    and    the    score    of   others    who 


HUXLEY,  BAIN  AND  LOGIC.  147 

started    out    to    crush    Christianity,    indorse 
what  Mr.  Huxley  says  here. 

Well,  when  they  found  this  law  existing 
throughout  the  vegetable  and  throughout 
the  a-nimal  kingdoms,  except  in  tJie  case  of 
man,  then  what  did  they  say  ? 

Why,  that  what  was  called  the  miraculous 
conception  of  Christ  could  only  have  been  a 
freak  of  nature  —  an  accident! 

Oh,  it  is  a  pitiable  sight  when  great  men 
are  reduced  to  such  straits  as  this  !  It  is  a 
sad  commentary  on  the  doctrine  of  universal 
honesty.  "It  just  happened  so."  Things 
don't  happen  so  in  this  universe  of  law.  The 
genus  of  Chance  does  not  preside  over  this 
little  planet  —  for,  if  it  did,  there  would  be 
no  end  to  the  happenings.  If  it  did,  Mr.  In- 
gersoll  might  have  been  Pope  Leo  XIII,  and 
Mr.  Beecher  might  have  been  less  given  to 
sensations. 

Now,  what  is  the  deduction  from  this  great 
truth   that    the    microscope    reveals    to    us,— 
or  that  God  reveals  to  us  through  the  micro- 
scope,—  that  the  law  of  agamo-genesis,  or  not- 


I  48  THE  'ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

sexual  generation  exists?  Why,  if  the  law- 
exists,  then  it  must  be  in  harmony  with  all 
other  laws  of  the  universe,  as  we  found  a 
while  ago  ;  and  if  it  applies  to  the  vegetables 
and  the  higher  orders  of  animals,  as  the 
scientists  have  demonstrated,  it  is  in  Gocfs 
reserve  power  that  it  may  be  applied  to  man 
without  the  infraction  of  any  law  of  the  uni- 
verse. And,  therefore,  God  only  used  His 
reserve  power  when  He  did  apply  it  in  the 
miraculous  conception  of  Christ 

But  you  will  say:  In  the  vegetables,  and 
animals  below  man,  this  law  of  not-sexual 
generation  invariably  produces  the  same  ef- 
fects. Very  true, —  there  can  be  nothing 
truer  than  that  like  causes  produce  like  ef- 
fects. That  which  became  the  cause  in  the 
orders  below  man  was  simply  the  result  of 
the  exercise  of  the  ordinary  power  of  the  law 
as  applied  to  their  several  species,  invariably 
producing  the  same  effects :  that  which  be- 
came the  cause  in  the  conception  of  Christ 
was  the  result  of  the  exercise  of  the  reserve 
power  of  God;  and,  to  conclude  logically, 


A  HIGHER  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD. 


149 


we  must  hold  that  a  like  effect  could  only 
proceed  from  a  like  cause,  and  that,  there- 
fore, there  has  been  but  one  Christ. 

Now,  does  this  idea  of  the  reserve  power 
of  God,  as  we  have  applied  it,  detract  from 
the  omnipotence  of  Deity?  Not  at  all.  On 
the  contrary,  to  my  mind,  it  exalts  the 
thought  of  Omnipotence  by  linking  it  to 
Omniscience.  To  my  mind,  it  introduces 
us  to  a  higher,  nobler  conception  of  God. 
Why  ?  Upon  the  old  theory,  the  laws  of 
the  universe  (of  which  it  is  held  that  God 
was  the  author  and  maker)  were  such 
that  it  became  necessary,  in  order  to  meet 
emergencies,  that  God  should  break  them  or 
make  new  ones.  In  other  words,  these  laws 
which  God  made  were  so  imperfect  that  the 
Deity  was  constantly  putting  them  through 
a  course  of  repairs.  Upon  the  theory  we 
have  endeavored  to  present  in  this  paper,  the 
laws  of  the  universe  are  perfect  and  equal  to 
all  emergencies.  In  our  ignorance  we  may 
understand  them  only  to  the  extent  of  finite 
intelligence:  in  God's  wisdom  He  under- 


150  THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

stands  them  to  the  extent  of  infinite  intelli- 
gence —  Omniscience. 

I  am  so  constituted  that  I  could  not  wor- 
ship a  God  who  ruled  through  imperfect  laws. 
If  His  laws  were  imperfect  I  should  conclude 
that  He  must  be  an  imperfect  God.  The  God 
I  worship  is  a  perfect  God.  He  is  Omnis- 
cient, Omnipotent  and  Omnipresent.  He  is 
a  perfect  God,  and  He  rules  through  perfect 
laws. 

Now,  we  must  accept  one  of  the  two  con- 
clusions :  Miracles  are  either  wrought  in  obe- 
dience to  law  or  by  the  infraction  of  law. 
No  one  can  take  exception  to  this  proposi- 
tion. Well,  then,  I  accept  the  former  upon 
the  theory  of  Reserve  Power.  Who  accepts 
the  latter  must  be  met  by  this  incontroverti- 
ble, scientific  fact :  The  infraction  of  the  least 
possible  law  of  the  universe  would  bring  con- 
fusion and  universal  chaos;  since  there  is 
but  one  universe,  but  one  set  of  laws  for  that 
one  universe,  and  every  law  in  that  one  uni- 
verse must  work  in  perfect  harmony  with 
every  other  law  in  that  one  universe;  and, 


NO  W  MEE  T  THE  E  VIDENCE.  \  5  I 

therefore,  every  law  is  dependent  upon  every 
other  law  for  the  continuation  of  its  own  ex- 
istence. 

I  think  it  will  be  conceded  that  we  have 
proven  the  possibility  of  what  are  called  mira- 
cles. The  Infidels  must  now  meet  the  evidence 
of  the  records,  which  they  never  have  done. 
They  have  simply  set  the  whole  question  of 
miracles  aside  by  declaring  that  they  were  im- 
possible, as  an  infraction  of  law  was  an  impos- 
sibility. But  we  have  found  that  miracles  may 
be  wrought  without  the  infraction  of  law,  and, 
as  I  say,  now  they  must  meet  the  evidence. 

The  question  has  often  been  asked,  why 
God  did  not  send  Christ  direct  from  heaven, 
in  the  full  stature  of  physical  and  intellectual 
development ;  or,  in  other  words,  what  was 
the  necessity  of  Christ's  being  born  of  a 
woman,  and  that  He  should  rest  on  the  breast 
of  a  mother,  and  listen  to  her  gentle  lullaby, 
and  dally  with  the  sunbeams,  as  a  child,  and 
drink  in  the  sweet  significance  of  the  flowers  ; 
and  that  he  should  revel  with  youth  in  the 
bird  songs  and  the  hymns  of  the  Zephyrs  at 


I  5  2  THE  ABSOL  UTE  NECESSITIES. 

eventide;  that  He  should  rise  step  by  step  to 
manhood,  as  every  man  must  on  this  earth  ; 
and  that  He  should  die,  and  be  buried,  and  rise 
again;  —  was  it  that  He  should  know  our 
condition  here  ?  Yes,  but  more  than  this, — 
that  He  should  know  it  as  we  know  it !  Yes, 
for  He  knew  it  as  God  before :  but  more 
than  this, —  that  he  should  learn  it  as  we  learn 
it,  in  obedience  to  law  !  Christ  was  conceived 
through  God's  reserve  power  that  there  should 
be  no  infraction  of  law.  He  was  born  of 
woman  that  there  should  be  no  infraction  of 
law.  He  passed  through  all  the  stages  of 
development  that  there  should  be  no  infrac- 
tion of  law.  He  died,  was  buried,  and  was 
resurrected  that  there  should  be  no  infraction 
of  law.  God  never  did  break  a  law  and  He 
never  will  break  a  law!  Every  law  of  the 
universe  is  in  harmony  with  the  very  law  of 
God's  own  being,  and  to  break  a  law  would 
be  to  break  Himself.  And  this  is  just  as 
sure  as  that  there  is  but  one  universe,  and 
that  there  is  but  one  God  of  that  one 
universe. 


CHRIS  TIANITT  A  SCIENCE.  153 

"The  universe  is  governed  by  law  /  "  says 
Humboldt,  and  Ingersoll  takes  up  the  re- 
frain and  cries,  "  the  universe  is  governed  by 
law  f "  "  A  second  Daniel  come  to  judg- 
ment !  I  thank  thee,  Jew,  for  teaching  me 
that  word !  Now,  Infidel,  I  have  thee  on 
the  hip!" 

Christianity  is  a  science,  and  the  most  ac- 
curate of  all  the  sciences.  It  is  the  founda- 
tion of  the  purest  philosophy.  It  is  the 
science  of  the  soul.  It  is  the  science  by 
which  God  leads  us  up  to  Himself.  And 
its  laws  are  as  sure  as  the  foundations  of 
the  universe. 

And  as  sure  as  good  deeds  will  be  rewarded, 
just  that  sure  must  evil  deeds  be  punished; 
for  this  is  the  law  0/~  existence  ;  the  law  neces- 
sary to  existence;  the  law  by  which  .existence 
is  made  possible ;  the  only  law  by  which  ex- 
istence could  be  made  possible  ; —  it  is  the  law 
of  the  Absolute  Necessities. 

And  the  Bible  is  the  one  book  that  con- 
tains that  part  of  that  law  which  pertains  to 
the  soul ;  the  one  indestructible,  immutable 


154  THE  ABSOLUTE  NECESSITIES. 

temple  that  was  built  by  God  to  contain  the; 
Sacred  Treasures. 

Let  the  storms  of  Infidelity  rage,  though 
they  be  ever  so  loud !  Let  thoughtless 
youth  and  decaying  old  age  sport  as  oft  as 
they  may  with  the  perilous  winds  !  The  storm 
shall  roll  on  and  be  lost  in  the  night,  but  the 
temple  shall  stand  as  before ! 

Be  ye  not  deceived,  for  our  Lord  is  not 
mocked ! 

The  storm  shall  roll  on  and  be  lost  in  the 
night,  and  the  night  it  shall  pass,  and  then 
cometh  the  morn  and  the  li^ht!  and  then  we 

o 

shall  see,  and  shall  know,  and  our  voices  shall 
sing  a  sweet  song,  attuned  to  the  song  of  the 
stars !  We  shall  join  the  grand  chorus  of 
worlds ! 

A  chorus  that  began  with  the  faint  muffled 
purl  of  nebulae  —  was  touched  to  measure 
by  His  voice  who  said,  "  Let  there  be 
light!"  then  joined  by  the  resonant  waves 
of  the  deep  ;  and  when  the  waters  were  to- 
gether drawn,  by  cascade  and  rill,  brook,  river 
and  sea! 


THE  CHORUS  OF  THE  UNIVERSE.     155 

A  chorus  that  caught  up  the  million- 
voiced  rhythm,  the  first  sweet  song  of  nature, 
and  the  first  wild  rhapsody  of  universal  life  ! 

A  chorus  whose  reverberations  melt  into 
oneness  the  harmonious  cycles  of  the  past, 
and  in  whose  echoes  every  moment  finds  a 
perfect  register  ! 

A  chorus  that  now  joins  the  melodious 
voices  of  every  sylvan  bower  and  glen  !  of 
every  bright,  sun-kissed  floral  vale !  of  the 
vast  fields,  rich  with  their  golden  grain  !  of 
vaster  plains  run  wild  in  liberty !  aye,  of  the 
very  deserts  whose  bright  sands  reflect  the 
marvelous  music  of  the  sunbeams ! 

A  chorus  that  unites  both  hemispheres, 
whose  mountains  echo,  and  whose  rivers  bear, 
the  illimitable,  grand  refrain  ! 

A  chorus  that  leaps  into  the  clouds  !  grasps 
the  thunder !  sweeps  through  the  corridors  of 
the  universe !  rises  into  the  translucent 
ether!  mounts  the  azimuth  stair  of  the  In- 
finite, and  rests  at  last  at  the  very  throne  of 
the  Eternal  God ! 


PUBLISHED  BY  S.   C.    GRIGGS  &  CO.,   CHICAGO. 

ROBERT'S  RULES  OF  ORDER,  For  Deliberative  Assemblies.- 
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"  It  seems  much  better  adapted  to  the  use  of  societies  and  assemblies  than 
hither  Jefferson's  Manual  or  Cushing's." — jf.  M.  Gregory,  LL.  D.,  late  President 
of 'the  Illinois  Industrial  University. 

"  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  see  your  Manual  brought  into  general  use,  as  I  am 
sure  it  must  be,  when  its  great  merit  and  utility  become  generally  known. — Hon.  V 
M.  Cooley,  LL,  D  ,  author  of  '  Cooley' s  Blackstone,'  "  etc. 

"  After  carefully  examining  it  and  comparing  it  with  several  other  books  having 
the  same  object  in  view,  I  am  free  to  say  that  it  is,  by  far,  the  best  of  all.  The 
'  Table  of  Rules '  is  worth  the  cost  of  the  work." — Thomas  Bowman,  D.  D.', 
Bishop  of  Baltimore  M.  E.  Conference. 

"  This  capital  little  manual  will  be  found  exceedingly  useful  by  all  who  arc 
concerned  in  the  organization  or  management  of  societies  of  various  kinds.     .    . 
If  we  mistake  not,  the  book  will  displace  all  its  predecessors,  as  an  authority  on 
parliamentary  usages." — New  York  World. 

"I  admire  the  plan  of  your  work,  and  the  simplicity  and  fidelity  with  which 
you  have  executed  it.  It  is  one  of  the  best  compendiums  of  Parliamentary  Law 
that  I  have  seen,  and  exceedingly  valuable,  not  only  for  the  matter  usually 
embraced  in  such  a  book,  but  for  its  tables  and  incidental  matter,  which  serve 
greatly  to  adapt  it  to  common  use." — Dr.  D.  C.  Eddy  ^Speaker  of  the  Massachu- 
setts House  of  Representatives.  * 

MISHAPS  OF  MR.  EZEKIEL  PELTER.-Hiustrated. 

12mo,  cloth 81.50. 

"So  ludicrous  are  the  vicissitudes  of  the  much-abused  Ezekiel,  and  so  much  of 
human  nature  and  every-day  life  intermingle,  that  it  will  be  read  with  a  hearty  zest 
for  its  morals,  while  the  humor  is  irresistible.  If  you  want  to  laugh  at  something 
new,  a  regular  side-splitter,  get  this  book." — The  Evangelist,  St.  Louit. 

"  We  have  read  Ezekiel.  We  have  laughed  and  cried  over  its  pages.  It  grows 
in  interest  to  the  last  sentence.  The  story  is  well  told,  and  the  moral  so  good,  that 
we  decidedly  like  and  commend  it."— Pacific  Baptist,  San  Francisco. 


PUBLISHED  BY  S.   C.  GRIGGS  &  CO.,  CHICAGO. 

GETTING  ON  IN  THE  WORLD;  or,  Hints  on  Suc- 
cess in  Life.—  By  WM.  MATHEWS,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  English  Literature^ 
etc.,  in  the  University  of  Chicago.  Beautifully  printed  and  handsomely  bound. 

Price,  i  vol.,  ismo.,  Cloth $2  Half  calf  binding,  gilt  top $3  50 

The  same,  gilt  edges 250       Full  calf,  gilt  edges 500 

CONTENTS  :  —  Success  and  Failure  —  Good  and  Bad  Luck  —  Choice  of  a  Pro- 
fession—  Physical  Culture —  Concentration  —  Self  -  Reliance —  Originality  in 
Aims  and  Methods — Attention  to  Details  —  Practical  Talent  — Decision  — 
Manner  —  Business  Habits  —  Self-Advertising — The  Will  and  the  Way  — 

Reserved  Powei Economy  of  Time  —  Money,  its  Use  and  Abuse  —  Mercantile 

Failures —  Over-Work  and  Under-Rest  —  True  and  False  Success. 

"  A  book  in  the  highest  degree  attractive,  *  *  and  which  will  be  sure  \.opay 
in  dollars  and  cents  many  times  over  the  cost  of  the  work,  and  the  time  devoted 
to  its  perusal." — Lockport  Journal,  New  York. 

"  It  is  sound,  morally  and  mentally.  It  gives  no  one-sided  view  of  life ;  it  does 
not  pander  to  the  lower  nature  ;  but  it  is  high-toned,  correctly  toned  throughout. 
*  *  There  is  an  earnestness  and  even  eloquence  in  this  volume  which  makes 
the  author  appear  to  speak  to  us  from  the  living  page.  It  reads  like  a  speech. 
There  is  an  electric  fire  about  every  sentence." — Episcopal  Register,  Philadelphia. 

"  There  is  no  danger  of  speaking  in  too  high  terms  of  praise  of  thi--  volume. 
As  a  work  of  art  it  is  a  gem.  As  a  counselor  it  speaks  the  wisdom  cf  the  ages.  As  a 
teacher  it  illustrates  the  true  philosophy  of  life  by  theexperience  of  eminent  men  of 
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the  record  of  triumphs  that  seemed  impossible.  It  is  a  book  of  facts  and  not  of 
theories.  The  men  who  have  succeeded  in  life  are  laid  under  tribute,  and  made  to 
divulge  the  secret  of  their  success.  They  give  vastly  more  than  *  hints  ;'  they 
make  a  revelation.  They  show  that  success  lies  not  in  luck,  but  in  pluck. 
Instruction  and  inspiration  ar«  the  chief  features  of  the  work  which  Prof.  Mathews 
has  done  in  this  volume." — Christian  Era,  Boston. 

THE  GREAT  CONVERSERS,  and  Other  Essays.- 

By  WM.  MATHEWS,  LL.D.,  author  of  "  Getting  On  in  the  World." 

i  volume,  I2mo.,  306  pages,  with  Map,  price $t  75 

"As  fascinating  as  anything  in  fiction." — Concord  Monitor. 

"  These  pages  are  crammed  with  interesting  facts  about  literary  men  and  lite- 
rary work." — New  York  Evening  Mail. 

"  They  are  written  in  that  charming  and  graceful  style,  which  is  so  attractive 
in  this  author's  writings,  and  the  reader  is  continually  reminded  by  their  ease  and 
grace  of  the  elegant  compositions  of  Goldsmith  and  Irving." — Boston  Transcript. 

"  Twenty  essays,  all  treating  lively  and  agreeable  themes,  and  in  the  easy, 
polished  and  sparkling  style  that  has  made  the  author  famous  as  an  essayist.  *  * 
The  most  striking  characteristic  of  Prof.  Mathewi1  writing  is  its  wonderful  wealth 
of  illustration.  *  *  One  will  make  the  acquaintance  of  more  authors  in  the 
course  of  a  single  one  of  his  essays  than  are  probably  to  be  met  with  in  the  same 
limited  space  anywhere  else  in  the  whole  realm  of  our  literature." — The  Chicago 
Tribune. 


PUBLISH  ED  BY  S.    C.    GRIGGS  S°   CO.,    CHICAGO. 
WORDS;  THEIR  USE  AND  ABUSE,  By  Prof.  wm.  Mathews, 

Author  of  "Getting  on  in  the  World,"     "The  Great  Converters,"  Etc., £2  00. 

"A  book  of  rare  interest."— Brooklyn  Eagle. 
"Every  page  sparkles  with  literary  gems." — The  Interior. 
"An  interesting,  well-written  and  instructive  volume." — Independent^  N.  Y. 
"Every  literary  man  and  woman  should  read  it.'' — Sunday  Times,  N.  Y. 
"A  valuable  companion  for  writers,  talkers  and  people  generally." — Boston 
Journal. 

"Although  written  for  popular  reading,  they  are  scholarly  and  instructive,  and 
in  a  very  high  degree  entertaining.  No  one  can  turn  to  a  single  page  of  the  book  with- 
out finding  something  worth  reading  and  worth  remembering.  It  is  a  book  both  for 
'ibraries  and  general  reading,  as  scholars  will  not  disdain  its  many  valuable  illustra- 
ions,  while  the  rising  writer  will  find  in  it  a  perfect  wealth  of  rules  and  suggestions 
to  help  him  form  a  good  style  of  expression." — Publishers'  Weekly,  New  York. 

"To  this  large  class,  (the  great  body  of  our  people  in  every  rank,  occupation 
and  profession)  it  will  prove  a  most  entertaining  recreation  and  useful  study.  Young 
men  in  higher  schools,  academies  and  colleges  will  also  find  it  a  useful  and  helpful 
guide,  which  will  not  only  save  them  from  committing  vulgar  solecisms  and  awkward 
verbal  improprieties,  but  from  contracting  vicious  habits  that  will  stick  to  them,  if 
once  suffered  to  be  formed,  like  the  shirt  of  Nessus." — Christian  Intelligencer,  New 
York. 

"The  final  chapter  on  'Common  Improprieties  of  Speech'  should  be  printed  in 
tract  form.  .  ,  .  We  should  like  to  put  a  copy  of  this  book  into  the  hands  ale-very 
man  andivontan  who  is  using  or  intends  to  use,  our  good  old  Anglo-Saxon  with 
voice  or  pen  for  any  public  service.  It  is  a  text  book,  full  of  information,  and  con- 
tains hints,  rules,  criticisms  and  illustrations,  which  authenticate  their  own  value."— 
Christian  at  Work,  New  York 


TWO   YEARS    IN    CALIFORNIA,    By  Mary   Cone.     With  15  fine 
engravings,  a  map  of  California,  and  a  plan  of  the  Yosemite  Valley.    Cloth $1.75 

"One  of  the  most  reliable  and  authentic  works  on  California  yet  issued." — Sun- 
day Times,  New  York. 

"One  of  the  best  descriptions  of  the  Golden  State  that  has  met  our  eye, 
unbiassed,  impartial,  and  intelligent." — Christian  at  Work,  New  York, 

"This  is  a  book  of  absorbing  interest.     .     .    No  description  can  do  justice  to 
it.     Every  page  deserves  to  be  read  and  studied." — Albany  Journal. 

'    "It  would  be  difficult  to  compress  within  the  same  limits  more  really  valuable 
information  on  the  subject  treated  than  is  here  given." — Morning  Star,  Boston. 

"Will  be  of  much  value  to  everyone  who  contemplates  either  visiting  or  emi- 
garting  to  California." — New  York  Evening  Mail, 


PUBLISHED-  BY  S.  C.  GRIGGS  &•  CO.,  CHICAGO. 
PRE-HISTORIC  RACES  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

By  J.  W.  FOSTER,  LL.D.,  Author  of  "  The  Physical  Geography  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley,''  etc.     415  pages,  crown  8vo,  with  a  large  number  of  illustrations. 

Price,  cloth $3  oo 

Half  calf  binding,  gilt  top - 5  oo 

Full  calf,  gilt  edges 5   50 

"  One  of  the  best  and  clearest  accounts  we  have  seen  of  those  grand  monument; 
of  a  forgotten  race." — London  Saturday  Review, 

"The  reader  will  find  it  more  fascinating  than  his  last  favorite  novel." — 
Eclectic  Magazine,  N.  }". 

"  The  book  is  literally  crowded  with  astonishing  and  valuable  facts."— 
Boston  Post. 

"  It  is  an  elegant  volume  and  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  subject.  *  *  * 
Contains  just  the  kind  of  information  in  clear,  compressed  and  intelligible  form, 
which  is  adapted  to  the  mass  of  readers." — Appleton^s  Popular  Science  Monthly. 

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convenient  index  is  really  elegant  and  a  sort  of  luxury  to  possess  and  read.  *  * 
Dr.  Foster's  style  reminds  us  of  Tyndall  and  Proctor,  at  their  best.  *  '  He 
goes  over  the  ground,  inch  by  inch,  and  accumulates  information  of  surprising 
jnterest  and  importance,  bearing  on  this  subject,  which  he  gives  in  his  crowded  but 
most  instructive  and  entertaining  chapters  in  a  thoroughly  scientific  but  equally 
popular  way.  We  have  marked  whole  pages  of  his  book  for  quotation,  and  finally 
from  sheer  necessity  have  been  compelled  to  put  the  whole  volume  in  quotation 
marks,  as  one  of  the  few  books  that  are  indispensable  to  the  student,  and  scarcely 
less  important  for  the  intelligent  reader  to  have  at  hand  for  reference." — Golden 
Age,  New  York. 


A  MANUAL  OF  GESTURE.- With  over  100  Figures, 
embracing  a  complete  system  of  Notation,  with  the  Principles  of  Interpretation 
and  Selections  for  Practice.  By  Prof.  A.  M.  BACON. 

Price — . $i  75 

"  Prof.  Bacon  has  given  us  a  work  that,  in  thoroughness  and  practical  value, 
deserves  to  rank  among  the  most  remarkable  books  of  the  season.  There  has  in 
fact,  been  no  work  on  the  subject  yet  offered  to  the  public  which  approaches  it  for 
exhaustiveness  and  completeness  of  detail.  *  *  It  is  of  the  utmost  value, 
not  merely  to  students,  but  to  lawyers,  clergymen,  teachers,  and  public  speakers, 
and  its  importance  as  an  assistant  in  the  formation  of  a  correct  and  appropriate 
style  of  action  can  hardly  be  over-estimated." — The  PKiladelphia  Inquirer. 

"  Prof.  Bacon's  Manual  seems  expressly  arranged  for  the  help  of  those  who 
study  alone  and  have  undertaken  self-instruction  in  the  art  of  persuasive  delivery. 
The  work  in  the  hands  of  our  ministry,  well  studied,  would  have  the  effect  of 
emphasizing  the  living  words  of  the  Gospel  all  over  the  land,  and  making  them 
two-edged  with  meaning." — The  Chicago  Pulpit. 


o 


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